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ELEMENTS 



OF 



MENTAL SCIENCE 



BEING A COMPREHENSIVE EXPOSITION OF THE PHENOMENA OF 
THE HUMAN MIND CONSIDERED IN ITS GENERAL CHAR- 
ACTERISTICS, IN ITS PARTICULAR FUNCTIONAL 
ACTIVITIES, AND AS AN ORGANIC WHOLE 



BY 



/ 

. T)A 



HENRY N. T)AY 

n 

AUTHOR OF "PSYCHOLOGY," " AESTHETICS," " LOGIC," " ETHICS," "PHILOS- 
OPHY OF THOUGHT AND BEING." " ENGLISH LITERATURE," 
" ART OF DISCOURSE," ETC. 




6 







COPYRIGHT, 1886, BY 

IVISON, BLAKEMAN, TAYLOR, & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK and CHICAGO 






^>*\^ 
-$-**• 



PREFACE. 



THIS text-book in Mental Science is designed 
to be a compact but comprehensive presentation 
of the facts of the human mind in scientific 
method and form. The science is treated as one 
of observation, not of speculation. Little space 
accordingly is given to metaphysical discussions. 
The design is rather to prepare the beginner in 
mental studies for an appreciative understanding 
of the history of philosophic thought in the 
past and of the speculations and discussions in 
this field of investigation at the present, as he 
may prosecute these studies in the lecture-room 
or in private reading. 

The science is carefully defined in its proper 
province and comprehension, and is mapped out 
into departments that are determined by lines of 
demarkation appearing in the nature of the mind, 
so that the treatment may be recognized as exact, 
orderly, and exhaustive. 

The outer boundaries of mental science, it is 
believed, are now determined beyond reasonable 
question ; and the leading divisions with their re- 
spective organic relationships are also as clearly 



iv PREFACE. 

ascertained. The progress of the science, hence- 
forth, will be in the line of the investigation of the 
more specific phenomena of mind in their respect- 
ive natures, and their relations to one another 
and to the universe of object with which the hu- 
man mind is in interaction. 

Two leading peculiarities in this present treat- 
ment of the subject may be specified here. They 
are, first, the separate formal presentations of the 
three comprehensive functional forms of mental 
activity — the functions of form, of knowledge, 
and of choice on the one hand, and of their sev- 
eral objects — the beautiful, the true, and the 
good on the other. The active subject and its 
object are exhibited each in its own proper char- 
acter and laws, so that light from each side is 
thrown upon the other. 

Secondly, the facts of the mind viewed as an 
organic whole, and accordingly as more than a 
mere aggregation of specific functions, are pre- 
sented under the two like complementary views 
of rational activity — subjective and objective. 

In addition to those peculiarities of method 
may be mentioned many peculiarities in special 
doctrines, as touching the place and office of the 
imagination and of memory in mental phenomena, 
the nature of knowledge, the genesis of our ideas 
of time and space and of so-called a priori truths, 
and others. 

Free use has been made of the author's pre- 



PREFACE. v 

vious works in this field of knowledge, his " Psy- 
chology," "^Esthetics," "Logic," "Ontology, or 
Philosophy of Thought and of Being. " MuLTUM 
MAGNORUM VIRORUM JUDICIO CREDO : ALIQUID 
ET MEO VINDICO. 

New Haven, 1886. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

§ i. Province of Mental Science. § 2. Its dignity and 
importance. § 3. Place in the Sciences. § 4. Sources of 
information. § 5. Method. 

BOOK I. 
GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

Chapter I. § 6. The Essential Activity of Mind. 

Chapter II. The Tri -functional Unity of Mind. 
— § 7. The human mind one in a plurality. § 8. Not identi- 
cal with the object of its activity. § 9. Simple. § 10. Its 
three functions — sensibility, intelligence, will. 

Chapter III. The Continuousness of Mind. — 
§ 11. The human mind continues in its activity. § 12. This 
continuousness the ground of personal identity. § 13. The 
ground of memory. § 14. The ground of habit. § 15. The 
condition of mental growth. 

Chapter IV. The Organic Nature of the Human 
Mind. — § 16. The human mind a part of a larger whole 
therefore finite and dependent. § 17. A sympathetic part 
in interacting ministry. § 18. Organic in its own interior 
nature. 

Chapter V. The Self-consciousness of Mind.— 
§ 19. The mind conscious of its own acts and feelings. 
§ 20. Exposition of consciousness as a knowing function 



viii CONTENTS. 

employed with the modifications of the mind itself. §21. 
Consciousness variously modified in degree and in range. 

Chapter VI. The Spontaneity and Self-deter- 
MINATENESS OF THE MlND. — § 22. The activity of the 
mind as spontaneous. § 23. As self-determined. § 24. As 
aiming or telic. 

Chapter VII. The Relativity of the Mind. — 
§ 25. Diversity of relationship in the human mind. § 26. 
The real. § 27. Of the tri-functional relativity in subject 
to object. § 28. The true, the beautiful, and the good as 
respective objects to the three mental functions. § 29. Cor- 
respondence of these classifications with the fourfold 
division of causes. 

BOOK II. 

THE SENSIBILITY.— I. SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 

Chapter I. Its Nature and Modifications. — § 30. 
The sensibility defined. § 31. Form. § 32. Sympathy. 
§ 33. The imagination. § 34. Feelings and forms respective 
states of the sensibility and the imagination. § 35. Classifi- 
cation of the feelings. § 36. Method. 

Chapter II. Pleasure and Pain.— § 37. Pleasure 
and pain defined. § $&. Their immediate source in mental 
acts and affections. § 39. Relation to external objects. 
§ 40. Finalities. § 41. Simple and integral. § 42. Tests 
of action and condition. § 43. Modifications. 

Chapter III. The Sensations.— § 44. Sensations de- 
fined. § 45. Medium of sensation. § 46. The nervous 
organism in man. § 47. Its functional nature. § 48. 11) 
In the nervous organism itself. § 49. (2) In the body gen- 
erally. § 50. (3) In respect to the mind. § 51. Sensations 
classified. § 52. Simple bodily pleasure and pain. § 53. 
General vital sense. § 54. The general organic sense. 
§ 55. Special senses— touch, taste, smell, hearing, sight. 



CONTENTS* ix 

Chapter IV. The Emotions. — § 56. Emotion de- 
fined. § 57. Three general classes of emotions. § 58. In- 
tellectual emotions. § 59. ^Esthetic emotions, — the Sub- 
lime, the Beautiful, the Comic. § 60. Moral emotions. 

Chapter V. The Affections. — § 61. Affections de- 
fined. § 62. Love and hate. §§ 63, 64. Varieties. § 65 
Resentments. 

Chapter VI. The Desires. — § 66. Desires defined. 
§§ 6y, 68. Classified. § 69. Self-love and selfishness. 
§ 70. Appetites. § 71. Rational desires. §§ 72, 73. Per- 
sonal desires. § 74. Social desires. § 75. Hopes and 
fears. 

Chapter VII. The Sentiments. — § 76. Sentiments 
defined. § jj. Classified in reference to their essential 
nature. § j8. Contemplative sentiments. § 79. Practical 
or moral sentiments. § 80. Rational sentiments. § 81. 
The sentiments classified in reference to their objects. 

Chapter VIII. The Passions.— § 82. The passions 
described. 

Chapter IX. The Imagination.— § 83. The imagi- 
nation defined. § 84. Different names. § 85. Its nature 
unfolded. §§ 86-88. Ideals. 

Chapter X. The Imagination : — Sense-Ideals. 

§ 89. Sense-ideals defined. § 90. Modifications. §§ 91,92. 
Relations of mind and body. § 93. Phantoms. § 94. Ex- 
alted sensibility. § 95. Suspended sensibility. § 96. Dream- 
ing. § 97- Catalepsy. § 98. Somnambulism. 

Chapter XI. The Imagination :— Spiritual 
Ideals.— § 99. Spiritual ideals defined. § 100. Source. 
§ 101. Embodiment. 

Chapter XII. Memory.— § 102. Memory defined. 
§ 103. Its law. §§ 104-107. Conditions of a good memory. 
§ 108. Special rules. 

Chapter XIII. Mental Reproduction. § 109. 



x CONTENTS. 

Mental reproduction defined. § no. Spontaneous or volun- 
tary — Reverie. §§ 111-117. Laws of mental association. 
§118. Reflex action. §§ 119 — 123. Recollection. 

Chapter XIV. Artistic, Philosophical, and 
Practical Imagination. — § 124. The three functions of 
the imagination. § 125. The artistic imagination. § 126. 
The philosophical imagination. § 127. The practical imagi- 
nation. 

THE SENSIBILITY.— II. OBJECTIVE VIEW. 

Chapter XV. Form in its Nature and Modifica- 
tions. — § 128. Form defined. § 129. Form addresses the 
emotions. § 130. Its three constituents. § 131. Kinds of 
beauty. 

Chapter XVI. Form Received. — § 132. Subjective 
conditions of the experience of beauty. § 133. Objective 
conditions. 

Chapter XVII. Form Produced. — § 134. Form pro- 
duced explained as idea expressed. § 135. Conditions or 
principles of form-production. 

BOOK III. 

THE INTELLIGENCE.— I. SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 

Chapter I. Nature and Modifications. — § 136. 
Intelligence defined. §§ 137-140. Its modifications. 

Chapter II. Perception. — § 141. Perception defined. 
§ 142. Relations to sensation. § 143. Sphere of perception. 
§§ 144, 145. Kinds of knowledge given in perception. 
§ 146. Perception gives immediate knowledge of external 
reality. 

Chapter III. Intuition. — § 147. Intuition defined. 
§ 148. Its sphere. §§ 149, 150. Kinds of knowledge given 
by intuition. 



CONTENTS. xi 

Chapter IV. Thought. — §§ 151, 152. Thought de- 
fined. § 153. The three essential constituents. § 154. The 
comprehensive principle of thought. § 155. The funda- 
mental laws : — Disjunction, Exclusion, Identity, Contradic- 
tion. § 156. Ground of their validity. § 157. The forms 
of thought. § 158. The judgment. § 159. The concept. 
§ 160. The reasoning. 

Chapter V. The Categories of Pure Thought. 
— §§ 161, 162. Category defined and explained. § 163. The 
category of identity and difference. § 164. The category of 
quantity. § 165. The category of modality. 

Chapter VI. Intellectual Apprehension and 
Representation. — § 166. Intelligence as capacity and 
as faculty. § 167. Intellectual apprehension. § 168. Intel- 
lectual representation. 

Chapter VII. Curiosity and Attention. — § 169. 
Intelligence instinctive or voluntary. § 170. Curiosity. 
§ 171. Attention. 

THE INTELLIGENCE.— II. OBJECTIVE VIEW. 

Chapter VIII. The True, — its Nature and Modi- 
fications. — § 172. The true explained. § 173. Its funda- 
mental category. § 174. Attributes classified. § 175. In- 
trinsic attributes — Properties. § 176. Extrinsic attributes — 
Relations. §177. Category of Substance and Cause. §178. 
Category of the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. § 179. 
Our knowledge a true knowledge. § 180. The true as re- 
ceived and the true as produced. 

Chapter IX. The True Received. — § 181. Faith. 
§ 182. Faith and knowledge. § 183. The true divisible into (1) 
internal or supersensible and (2) external or sensible. § 184. 
Internal, supersensible, or intuitive truth. § 185. The mind 
and its phenomena inseparable except in thought. § 186. 
Reality of our intuitions. § 187. Reality distinguishable 
from simple judgment. § 188. No knowledge before pres- 



xii CONTENTS. 

entation of the truth. § 189. The category of reality and 
its subordinate categories. § 190. Theories of time and 
space. § 191. Time as real. § 192. Space. § 193. Syn- 
opsis of fundamental categories. § 194. Matter. § 195. 
The truthfulness of sensible impressions. 

Chapter X. The True Produced.— § 196. The true 
produced — how possible. § 197. How validated. § 198. By 
what particular processes. § 199. By reasonings. (1) Im- 
mediate. § 200. (2) Mediate. § 201. By concepts. § 202. 
(1) By amplification. § 203. (2) By reduction. § 204. Re- 
lations of subject-concepts and attribute-concepts. § 205. 
Conformity of nature to thought. § 206. (1) Intuitive 
thought. § 207. (2) Perceptive thought. 

BOOK IV. 

THE WILL.— I. SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 

Chapter I. Its Nature and Modifications. — 
§ 208. The Will defined. § 209. Its modifications. 

Chapter II. Volition. — § 210. Exemplified. § 211. 
An act — selective and directive. § 212. Free. § 213. Per- 
sonal. § 214. Personality involving mental sovereignty. 
§ 215. Originative. § 216. Moral. § 217. Responsible. 

Chapter III. Growth and Subordinations of 
Will. § 218. The will capable of growth. § 219. De- 
pendent. § 220. Governing and subordinate volitions. 

Chapter IV. Conscience. — §221. Its elements. — §222. 
Discernment of right and wrong. § 223. Sentiment of obli- 
gation. § 224. Sense of approval or disapproval. § 225. 
Subjection to will. 

Chapter V. Hope, Faith, and Love. — § 226. As 
virtues. §227. Hope defined. § 228. Faith defined. §229. 
Love defined. 



CONTENTS. xiii 

THE WILL.— II. OBJECTIVE VIEW. 

Chapter VI. The Good — Its Nature and Modifi- 
cations. — § 230. The good defined. § 231. Its field. (1) 
The self ; (2) the not-self. § 232. The good as object to the 
will, moral. § 233. Moral good direct object to the will in 
character, indirect object in condition. § 234. Right moral 
action beneficent. 

Chapter VII. The Good Presented — Motives. 
— § 235. Motive defined. § 236. In what sense motive 
determines the will. § 237. Motive as good. § 238. Motives 
classified — external and internal. 

Chapter VIII. The Good Produced — Duties. 
— § 239. Duty explained. § 240. Its fundamental con- 
ditions. § 241. Duties classified. 

BOOK V. 
THE REASON.— THE MIND AS ORGANIC WHOLE. 

Chapter I. The Nature and Modifications of 
the Reason. — § 242. The reason as the organic whole of 
mind. § 243. Method. 

Chapter II. The Reason. — I. Subjective View. — 
§ 244. The reason not a special faculty ; its threefold activity. 
§ 245. I. The activity of the reason upon itself. § 246. II. 
Upon the several functional activities. § 247. III. Upon 
exterior objects. 

Chapter III. The Reason. — II. Objective View. 
— § 248. The proper object of rational activity, the perfecting 
of character and condition. § 249. In respect to itself and 
its environment. 



INTRODUCTION. 



§ i. Mental Science in the larger sense 
comprehends the four subordinate sciences of 
Psychology, ^Esthetics, Logic, and Ethics. It is 
the proper province of Psychology to set forth the 
facts generally of the human mind as learned 
from observation ; of Aesthetics to exhibit the 
laws and generic forms of the particular function 
of mental activity known as the Sensibility and 
the Imagination ; of Logic to present the laws 
and forms of the Intellect ; and of Ethics those 
of the Will. 

Mental Science will properly embrace these 
four subordinate sciences, but will view them from 
its own single point of observation and with 
a single method also peculiar to itself, while 
each of the others will have its own sepa- 
rate starting point and develop itself by its own 
method. It will thus be more comprehensive 
than psychology, as now generally understood, 
while it will avoid entering into the technical 
details and peculiar methods of the other three. 
Its aim will be to present in a general view the 
entire field of mental states and operations in 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

their organic relations and interdependencies, 
preparing the student in this way to enter more 
intelligently into the investigation of the mani- 
fold questions that present themselves concern- 
ing the phenomena of the human soul and the 
nature and regulative principles of truth, of 
beauty, and of morality, as well as also the 
deeper and broader speculations of metaphysical 
philosophy. 

§ 2. In dignity and importance no science can 
outrank the science of mind. The mind is " the 
self," the conscious, proper self; and sound 
wisdom indorses the familiar maxim that " the 
proper study of mankind is man." The most im- 
portant thing for one to know is himself — his 
own rational nature, its powers, its conditions, 
its final destiny as determined by a wise use of 
this self-knowledge. All other sciences found 
their claims to interest in this and from it derive 
their shaping and validating principles. " To 
know and understand itself," says Sir William 
Hamilton, speaking of the human mind, " and 
thus to establish its dominion over the uni- 
verse of existence — it is this alone which con- 
stitutes man's grand and distinctive pre-em- 
inence." No study affords a better means 
of discipline, as no science — at least no science 
of observation — can put forth a better claim 
to certitude and exactness of method, and 
none certainly is better fitted to train to those 
habits of reflective contemplation on the phenom- 



INTR OD UC TION. 3 • 

ena of human existence which characterize the 
man of truest and highest practical wisdom, and 
thus to effect the fullest and fastest growth of 
the essential excellencies of personal character. 

§ 3. The science of mind and the science of 
matter — -Mental Science and Physical Science — 
constitute the two great branches of science di- 
vided in reference to its subject-matter. If, 
however, Space and Time be assumed to be true 
realities, since we observe that the logical attri- 
bute of quantity has in them its most funda- 
mental applications, Mathematical Science may 
not improperly be ranked as a third co-ordinate 
science with those of mind and matter. The 
three comprehensive divisions of human science 
would accordingly be : (1) Mental or Spiritual ; 
(2) Physical ; and (3) Mathematical. 

Mental Science is properly ranked among the 
so-called Inductive Sciences. It begins with 
observation of particular facts, not with general 
truths. From one or more of such observed 
facts it induces to others of a like nature, so that 
a single observation may suffice to give a trust- 
worthy knowledge of an indefinite number of 
facts of the same class. One observation, or at 
least a few observations, thus, will afford a knowl- 
edge of the essential nature of all exertions of 
thought, or of imagination, or of will. So the ob- 
servation of the character of one man's feelings, 
or thoughts, or purposes will acquaint us with the 
character of those of other men generally in like 



4 IXTRODUCTION. 

relations. Still farther than this : as guided by 
induetive thought, Mental Science conducts us 
from observations of one department of mind to 
other co-ordinate and complementary depart- 
ments, just as the comparative zoologist is en- 
abled to determine from the bony structure of 
an animal what its cellular, its muscular, its nerv- 
ous systems, what its size, its food, its habits of 
life must have been, and even the character of 
other animal and vegetable life around it, as well 
as its general climatic environment. Mental. 
Science, thus, is built up chiefly and characteris- 
tically by the application of the methods of in- 
ductive thought. The co-ordinate movement of 
thought — the deductive — which proceeds from 
the whole class or the composite attribute to a 
subordinate grade, and so on to the individual or 
to the simple, as also the secondary logical proc- 
esses of classification and of analysis, are much 
and freely employed in aid and furtherance of 
induction, but rather in subordination than pre- 
dominance. 

§4. The facts of mind, which first through 
observation and then by means of induction, with 
its auxiliary processes of thought, are developed 
into the full form of a science, are discovered 
first and mainly by direct introspection. The 
mind is enabled to look inwardly upon itself, 
upon its exercises and affections, to distinguish 
one from another, to mark the respective qualities 
of each, to note their relations to one another 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

and their interdependence, and thus to gather up 
into its comprehensive observation the facts 
which enter into and constitute the science. 

But in addition to this, the thoughts, the feel- 
ings, the determinations of other men are also 
revealed to our view in the various ways in which 
the mind of man is accustomed to reveal itself. 

Still a third important field in which are to be 
observed the facts of mental science, is that of 
language, in the formation and the use of which 
men unite, -dropping aside for the time what is 
peculiar and abnormal and expressing thought 
and feeling in so far as they are common to men as 
a class. Language is the grand social revelation 
of the facts of mind in which there is agreement 
and consent of many minds, and so is peculiarly 
trustworthy and authoritative. 

While in manifold other ways the mind of 
man reveals itself to our observation, as in the 
arts, in government, in social customs, and 
science will not overlook any of those revelations, 
still it remains that the great commanding 
sources of fact for mental science are these three • 
— 1. Introspection; 2. Observation of others; 
3. Language. 

§ 5. From a careful survey of these several 
fields in which the facts of mind are presented 
to our observation, and in these facts, we learn 
that there are certain appearances or phenomena 
which are traceable to one common source or 
ground, and which in one particular selection and 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

grouping we call the peculiar characteristics 
of mind. These characteristics or attributes of 
mind, which are thus observed to be common 
to mind, constitute the subject of mental science. 
The science or knowledge of these attributes is 
the science or knowledge of mind, since the 
science or knowledge of an object is nothing but 
the science or knowledge of the attributes of that 
object considered in themselves and their rela- 
tions. The object itself, indeed, is none other 
than the complement or concrete whole of its at- 
tributes ; and it is known solely in and through 
its attributes. 

Attributes are divided into two great classes, 
the essential and the relative. The essential 
attributes are intrinsic to the object and make 
it to be what it is in itself ; the relative attributes 
are extrinsic to the object and make it to be 
what it is by reason of its relations to other ob- 
jects. The roundness, and the brightness, and 
the gravity of the sun are among its essential 
attributes ; its being the center of motion to the 
other bodies of the system is a relative attribute. 
It becomes thus the one object of mental science 
to gather up these attributes of mind, distin- 
guishing the essential from the relative, to 
arrange them in their due order of importance 
and dependence, and then unfold each in its 
proper fullness and bearing. 

We shall find that the mind possesses one 
essential attribute which so far outranks and 



INTRO D UC TION. 7 

transcends all others that it has often not improp- 
erly been regarded in its divers modifications 
as constituting the one comprehensive fact of 
mind, and thus the one topic to be considered in 
mental science : it is the attribute of activity. 
This attribute, because of this pre-eminent, if we 
do not more truly say exclusive, importance, it will 
be convenient to exhibit, first, in its divers sub- 
ordinate forms and modifications, and, secondly, 
as one organic whole. Our method will accord- 
ingly be to consider, in the First Book, the 
General Attributes of Mind ; 

In the Second Book, the first subordinate de- 
partment of the essential attribute of mind, just 
named, its activity, viz. : — Its FUNCTION OF 
Form, otherwise known as the Function of the 
Sensibility and the Imagination ; 

In the Third Book, the second special depart- 
ment of mental activity, The INTELLIGENCE ; 

In the Fourth Book, the third special depart- 
ment, The Will ; and — 

In the Fifth, the attributes of mental activity 
as an organic whole, under the appellation of 
The Reason. 



BOOK I. 
GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE ESSENTIAL ACTIVITY OF MIND. 

§ 6. The first glance turned inward on our 
mental nature discovers to us the prominent fact 
that it is an essentially active nature. We discern 
the mind, in truth, only in its operations. Even 
what we call the states of mind are active states. 
Our thoughts are active ; our imaginings are 
active ; our determinations are active. They all 
bear the character of change, of motion from one 
form or condition to another. Our feelings are 
the feelings of active natures ; they are not like 
impressions on stones, or inactive substances ; 
they are the affections of active beings. So strik- 
ing is this fact that by some philosophers the 
feelings have been denominated the active powers 
of the mind. 

Observation of other minds corroborates this 
testimony given by the inspection of our own 
inward being. They make themselves known to 



THE ESSENTIAL ACTIVITY OF MIND. 9 

us indeed only as they act or move and as by 
such action or motion they impress our minds. 
The universal language of men confirms the 
f ac t : — the human mind is essentially active. 
This is its first, great, comprehensive attribute. 
There is no actual or possible revelation made of 
mind that does not reveal this as its ever present 
and its predominant attribute. 

It is by this characteristic that mind is distin- 
guished from all other real or supposed natures. 
It is primarily and sharply distinguished from 
matter by this. Matter is recognized as inert, 
inactive ; as motionless and formless, except as 
moved and shaped by something extrinsic to 
itself. Whatever hypothesis may be enter- 
tained in regard to the nature of matter, whether 
as a real, peculiar entity in itself, or whether as a 
mere " center of force," or, in the better form of 
this class of hypotheses, as a potentialized force, 
that is, as force changed from an active or living 
force to a mere potency — a mere capability of mov- 
ing when meet occasion shall come to it for moving 
— whatever hypothesis may be entertained in re- 
gard to the nature of matter, it is ever and always 
recognized as the direct opposite of mind in this 
respect — that it is inert, inactive, moving only 
as it is moved. 

In like manner, the prevalent theories of space 
and time, even when recognizing them as real 
entities, refrain from attributing to either of 
them any such attribute as that of activity, at 



io GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

least in the narrower and more generally accepted 
sense of that term. They may be recognized as 
active positively in determining our cognitions, 
and negatively in certain limitations of real 
objects and actions. It is after all only the 
niceness of metaphysical speculation that recog- 
nizes activity as a mark of space or of time. 

This grand attribute — activity — ,then, we recog- 
nize as entering into the essential constitution 
of mind. In exact statement, indeed, activity 
constitutes the very essence of mind. We are 
not to think of the mind as a something exist- 
ing back of this activity, and from itself putting 
forth the activity. The activity is its very self, 
in the sense that the whole constituting attribute 
of an object is the object itself. As will appear 
hereafter when the nature of thought or of 
knowledge is unfolded, there is no substj-atum to 
be supposed as a necessary support for the attri- 
bute, in which the attribute may be said to inhere 
while yet distinct from it. The substance, so far 
as an actual being, is the same as its constituting 
attribute ; the mind is the same as its attribute 
of activity ; — mind and active substance arc the 
same. This will more fully appear in the sequel. 

Activity being thus the very essence of the 
mind, the beginning studies of mind should be 
led to recognize it as having this character. Our 
more familiar view regards the mind as a sub- 
stance with certain attributes, a view which in 
itself shuts out the notion of mind as a cause; 



THE ESSENTIAL ACTIVITY OF MIND. n 

whereas, subject to the restrictions of the mean- 
ing of that term to be given hereafter, the mind 
should far more properly be viewed under this 
latter relation of thought — as a cause, and so as 
active. The exposition of the nature of mind 
suffers much from this inconsiderate treatment 
of it, as a mere inactive substance. A chief diffi- 
culty in the study of mind springs from the 
difficulty of conceiving it as essentially active. 
From the start, therefore, the study should aim 
to regard the mind as an essentially active 
nature ; and every conception of it in any of its 
particular modifications, should keep steadfastly 
in view this essential attribute of its nature: 
The mind is essentially active. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE UNITY OF MIND, WITH A THREEFOLD 
DIVERSITY OF FUNCTION. 

§ 7. The human mind is, in the proper sense of 
the statement, a unit — it is single or individual, 
one by itself. The phrase — the human mind — 
may be used abstractly to denote the aggregate 
of the attributes of mind ; but when we speak 
concretely of the mind of a man, we speak of it 
as a unit, existing distinctly and separately from 
all other beings, as one among many. 

The decisive proof of this singleness or individ- 
uality of the human mind is derived from expe- 
rience and observation. So positively does every 
one know as from his own personal knowledge 
of himself that he is truly himself a distinct and 
separate being, that the statement of the truth 
seems a truism. He unintentionally and unavoid- 
ably makes this interpretation of his conscious 
experiences, that he is himself and not a part or 
a mode of the existence of any other being ; and 
that his mind, his soul, the being within him 
that thinks and feels, is as distinct from other 
minds as his body from other animal bodies. He 
feels himself, accordingly, to be responsible for 



THE UNITY OF MIND. 13 

much at least of what he thinks and purposes. 
All the records of human experience present uni- 
form testimony in confirmation of this utterance 
of individual consciousness. There is a plurality 
of minds ; each human mind is one of this plu- 
rality. . 

§ 8. Much less is the human mind to be re- 
garded as identical with its object. As an activ- 
ity it implies an object upon which or toward 
which it is exerted ; and to account for the 
interaction of mind with its object, to account, for 
example, for the mind's apprehension or thought 
of an object, it has been supposed by some that 
thought and object must be one and the same. 
But the common sense of men rejects this suppo- 
sition as in contradiction of all its strongest and 
deepest convictions — of convictions that could 
have only grown out of uniform experiences. 

That mind and its object are distinct is a truth 
of simple observation. This dualism in existence, 
implied in the fact of mental activity exerted 
upon some object distinct from itself, is thus a 
truth fundamental to all true philosophy, — to all 
philosophy that builds not on groundless assump- 
tion, but on solid fact as presented to human obser- 
vation. Mental action and object imply each 
other and are real correlatives in thought ; and the 
speculation would seem to be idle that should seek 
to reduce the one to the other, or indeed to sub- 
ordinate the one to the other. The remotest con- 
clusion which any such speculation could legiti- 



14 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OE MIND. 

mately reach would be that mind ever acts upon 
mind as object — upon some other mind, or upon 
itself in some one of its own departments of 
being. 

§ 9. The human mind is also simple. It is not 
made up of a number of constituents of diverse 
nature put together so as to form a mere aggregate 
or accumulation of elements. It has divers func- 
tions, performs divers acts, but it remains in all 
the same simple nature. The sun both warms and 
illuminates ; but it is the same sun that acts in 
both heat and light. So the human mind with 
its diversity of functions is one and simple, and 
cannot be decomposed into different things, one 
of which discharges the function of thinking, 
another that of feeling, and a third that of pur- 
posing. 

§ 10. With this singleness and simplicity of 
essential nature, we yet can easily distinguish 
three different modes of mental activity; and ac- 
cordingly we say that the human mind has 
three different functions. If thus we take up an 
orange and bring it near the sense, we find that 
it makes certain impressions upon us; we feel, for 
instance, its softness through the sense of touch. 
The function of the mind thus is feeling ; and 
this function of feeling is technically called the 
sensibility. Then we perceive that some object 
impresses us and gives us a feeling of this one of 
its attributes — its softness ; and we know that this 
object is soft. Another function of the mind 



THE UNITY OF MIND. 15 

thus is that of knowing ; and this function is 
called the intelligence. Still further, we may de- 
termine to hold fast the orange, to press it upon 
the hand, to move it before the eye, to smell or to 
taste it. We discover thus a third function of the 
mind, that of determining to do something; and 
this function of determining is called the will. 

All the discoverable modes of mental activity 
are reducible to one or the other of these three — 
feeling, knowing, willing. No other is conceiva- 
ble. They are organic functions belonging to- 
gether to the same being, each implying the other. 
We may notice more one or the other at different 
times ; one function may predominate and give a 
general character to the whole mental act or 
state. But the functions all go on together just 
as respiration and circulation of the blood and 
muscular contraction go on together. When we 
feel the softness of the orange which we hold in 
our hand, we may also perceive that it is soft, 
and determine to hold it or cast it away. The per- 
ceiving and the willing may not, in fact, come up 
into distinct consciousness, but we find that if 
we direct our attention upon either of those func- 
tional exertions, we may be conscious of its pres- 
ence as entering into every mental act, provided 
at least that the mental action be on a scale suf- 
ficiently large to be discerned by our intellectual 
vision. 

As stated in the Introduction our method will 
lead us to consider in separate books these three 



16 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

several functions — the mind as feeling-, as know- 
ing, and as willing — and to devote a separate book 
to the consideration of the action of the mind as 
an organic whole. For reasons which will then 
appear, this last view of the mind will be repre- 
sented under the appellation of the REASON, a 
term equivalent to the rational nature as it is dis- 
tinguished from the animal or bodily nature of 
man. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CONTINUOUSNESS OF MIND. 

§ II. The very notion of action involves that 
of continuousness. In so far as active, conse- 
quently, the human mind must be recognized as 
more or less continuous. Every specific feeling - , 
every thought, every purpose, has a beginning 
and an end and a continuity from beginning to 
end that constitutes it a single identical action 
or affection. This bond of continuity extends 
through the experience of the same mind during 
the entire period of its existence. Mental life is 
thus more than a chain made up of separate 
links ; it is more than an ever-flowing river 
which bears along the particles of water from the 
original spring down to their union with the 
sea; it is the continuity of a living thing. The 
river may in its course part with every particle that 
left the primitive source, from the effect of evap- 
oration or other displacement, and yet maintain 
its continuity and thereby its unity and identity 
by receiving successive supplies from rainfalls or 
from tributary streams that may indeed more 
than replace what it has lost. The life of mind 

flows on, never parting with anything of its true 
2 



iS GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

essence; relaxing its vigor, it may be, from time 
to time, and changing its current, but maintaining 
the unity and identity of a living nature that is 
far closer and more persistent than belongs to 
any merely inorganic thing. Every specific act of 
mind, every change or modification which it suf- 
fers, is bound by the bonds of a life to that which 
precedes and to that which follows. Any con- 
ception or reasoning which treats the mind as 
discontinuous, as at best only an aggregation of 
unconnected events or phenomena, as a mere 
succession or successions of changes, having no in- 
terior vital bond of unity, is radically at fault. 
It is hazardous to truth, even, ever to keep out 
of view the grand fundamental fact in regard to 
mind that its activity is continuous, never broken 
during its entire existence. 

There is, of course, no proof of discontinuous- 
ness. It would be a strange thing for a man to 
set up the claim that his present inner being of 
to-day has taken the place of the other and en- 
tirely different inner being of yesterday. The 
presumption is irresistible at the outset that his 
being of to-day has not been utterly disrupted 
from that of yesterday. The undeniable fact of 
observation that each specific action or affection 
of the mind has a certain continuousness of its 
own leads as irresistibly to the belief that the ac- 
tivity prolonged through days, or years, or through 
life, has suffered no interruption, has leaped no 
chasm separating different lives. Universal con- 



THE CONTINUOUSNESS OF MIND. 19 

sent, indeed, of itself establishes the truth so fully 
and surely that formal proof seems well nigh 
inept, certainly needless. But there are certain 
very important facts or truths of mind which are 
so closely connected with this attribute of con- 
tinuousness in mind, that they are both proofs of 
the attribute and, also conversely, are proved by 
it. They are of such a character as to justify 
particular consideration. 

§ 12. Men generally believe in the personal 
identity of each individual mind. Each one be- 
lieves that he is the same man to-day that he 
was yesterday. The belief is warrant for the be- 
lief in mental continuousness ; for certainly there 
could be no personal identity without personal 
continuousness. If the flow of my life has been 
broken, my present self is not the same self as 
that of yesterday, even if we should allow the 
hardly allowable supposition that the same cur- 
rent of feelings and actions had been reproduced 
in the present self that the self of yesterday 
would have had if its continuousness had not 
been broken off. No conceivable power could 
make one, lives or selves once divided and separate. 
We need to take a still higher view. Not only 
is it to be believed that the mind as a whole con- 
tinues, but we are constrained to the belief that 
every act and every affection of the mind abides 
imperishably forever afterward, maintaining an 
abiding presence in it. The mental experience 
of a year ago, of a decade of years ago, is, in a 



20 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

true sense, a part of the experience of to-day, shap- 
ing it, coloring it, characterizing it. It is certain 
that extraordinary experiences abide for years or 
even for life ; grand conceptions, strong feelings, 
momentous decisions and purposes, hold on for 
years, for life. But great things are made up 
of small, and cannot subsist without them ; the 
small, therefore, if the great and grand survive, 
must also survive with them. They may be un- 
noticed, they may be beyond the capabilities of 
our finite minds to notice them ; they may be 
there, nevertheless. Nothing forbids the suppo- 
sition that they have not been utterly annihilated. 
What, indeed, should cause them to perish ? A 
live thought — how can it utterly die ? A living na- 
ture that has put forth itself in this form or that 
form, can never be the same in all respects that 
it would have been but for that forthputting of 
its energy. Every act of thought was a part of 
its life and cannot be extirpated from it. Even 
such a supposed extirpation must leave the scar; 
and the scar shows something of what was once 
living there. My whole past lives in my present 
life. This continuousness of my past into my pres- 
ent is the ground and the only proper evidence of 
my personal identity. I am the same being that 
I was long years ago in my childhood, when I 
was startled by the lightning stroke that smote 
down my dwelling, because that scene is in my 
soul to-day. I felt it then, I feel it now. The 
same feeling in the soul proves the soul itself to 



THE CONTINUOUSNESS OF MIND. 21 

be the same. In regard to the future, the ques- 
tion of personal identity, stripped of all the ob- 
scurities and ambiguities of language, seems of 
the most fatuous character : — if I myself con- 
tinue, it is myself — my identical person — that 
continues, whatever catastrophes befall me. 

§ 13. The continuousness of mind is evidenced 
also in memory as it is in its turn the ground of 
this mental state. The full consideration of this 
phenomenon is reserved for another place. See 
Book II., c. xii. We recognize here the fact that 
we remember: it is a fact of universal recogni- 
tion that men remember. But what is memory ? 
Memory as retentive is mind holding on to acts 
or affections once experienced ; memory as repro- 
ductive is mind bringing forth into distinct con- 
sciousness and into further use such retained 
acts or affections. In either aspect there is in- 
volved in a state of memory something that is 
retained. And it is preposterous to suppose that 
one mind has felt the affection and dropped it 
for another mind to pick up and transmit to 
a third, and so on ; that there has been a succes- 
sion of heirs as in the case of an estate. But we 
need to take a higher view. Continuousness of 
mind is not merely the ground of memory , 
memory, as will be seen hereafter, is but mind it- 
self abiding, continuing on with the form which 
it has taken on in some previous experience. 

§ 14. Further, the continuousness of mind is 
evidenced in what is universally experienced and 



22 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

universall)' recognized as habit — the holding on 
of any specific form of mental activity. Memory, 
indeed, in its aspect as an active state, is but a 
form of habit. Some habits originating in child- 
hood abide through old age; others disappear to 
our limited vision, but hold on, invisibly affecting 
our mental action. Habit attaches to feeling, to 
thought, to will, to the whole mental life. It is 
indeed a recognized law of every living thing 
that it tends to continue any form of action 
till the energy that prompts it ceases or other 
opposing energies hinder. Men have habits of 
feeling, habits of thinking, habits of purposing and 
choosing. But clearly there can be no habits con- 
ceivable in what has no continuousness. Habit 
is a law of mental life ; it has its ground and 
seat in mind as continuous. Habit finds its expla- 
nation and governing laws in mental continu- 
ousness, presupposing it, therefore, and proving it. 
§ 15. Once more, the continuousness of mind is 
evidenced in the fact of mental grozvtJi, as it is 
the necessary Condition of such growth and is 
presupposed in it. The human mind grows. 
The fact is universal and is universally recog- 
nized. It grows from puny childhood to sturdy 
manhood. It grows in range of acquisition and 
in vigor of capacity. It grows in every function. 
Feeling strengthens and expands in continued 
life and exercise. The passion of a child is 
quick as it is tender and susceptible ; but it is 
transitory as a controlling affection, and easily 



THE CONTINUOUSNESS OF MIND. 23 

yields to new impulses, tracing only shallow 
marks of its existence on the abiding soul. The 
passion of adult manhood is comparatively strong 
and enduring, and shapes more observably men- 
tal character. So thought grows, develops vigor 
and augments its treasures of knowledge in the 
continuance of legitimate exertion. And purpose 
and endeavor in the same way grow in strength 
and also in breadth and compass. These abstract 
statements are verified in concrete life. Men are, 
as a general fact, growing into fuller and more 
determinate character. The portrait of the youth 
can hardly be identified with the picture of the 
man. The man is hardly himself, indeed, in the 
fullest sense, till he has growth ; and his charac- 
ter is fairly represented only in the picture of ad- 
vanced age, if, at least, the picture be taken be- 
fore physical decline has begun its defacing work. 
The philanthropist is a man of growth. He was 
a child as careless and as selfish as others were ; 
he has grown by his continuous life of sym- 
pathy and of kindness. The artist has grown by 
continuous study and production of beautiful or 
perfect form. The philosopher has grown by 
protracted thinking, observing and reflecting. 
The statesman, the general, all men who have 
large character are the subjects of growth ; and 
they are so by reason of this law of mental con- 
tinuousness. Only as what has been attained is 
still held, can there be any accumulation of 
strength or resources. It is the grand vice in 



24 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

education that the growing mind disregards this 
fundamental principle of growth. Skipping from 
study to study, from school to school, from 
teacher to teacher, permanent acquisition of 
knowledge, of thought, or of skill is impossible 
except on the lowest scale. If bud after bud be 
nipped just as it has begun to germinate, the 
season of education passes with no possibility of 
growth ; and the characteristic volatility, shal- 
lowness, and imbecility of childhood mark the 
youth and the man. The principles of mental 
continuousness, which may be violated although 
not with impunity, allow an indefinite growth. 
Life begun tends of itself to grow ; once started, if 
guarded and nourished till it has attained the 
stage of self-maintenance, it keeps on, itself put- 
ting forth new buds and at the same time send- 
ing back aliment to the parent stock itself. The 
simple condition is continuousness — continuous- 
ness to the proper stage in like direction, and 
under like conditions of endeavor. As there is 
mental growth, in fact to a degree, and in possi- 
bility to an indefinite extent, so there must be 
the necessary condition of this growth — mental 
continuousness. 

The whole mind thus has a nature susceptible 
of indefinite growth. As the plant and every 
growing thing unfolds itself in its several organs, 
in continuously successive yet simultaneous de- 
velopment, from primitive life-germ to stalk 
and root, to trunk and branch, to twig and leaf, 



THE CONTINUOUSNESS OF MIND. 25 

to flower and fruit, the whole mind grows. This 
growth may be stunted, or it may be fostered 
and quickened ; it may be misguided into de- 
formity or be wisely trained into strength and 
beauty. The great fact is : the mind, as a living 
active nature, is the subject of indefinite growth. 
The fact is evidence of the great truth or princi- 
ple of the continuousness of mind. 

There are certain facts to be recognized which 
seem at first view to be opposed to this represen- 
tation of mental continuousness. The mind is 
essentially active ; but this essential activity 
seems sometimes to be interrupted, as, for exam- 
ple, in sleep. It has been, indeed, a somewhat 
debated question whether the mind does sus- 
pend its activity in sleep. Sometimes, at least, 
no sign of activity appears. Nothing is re- 
membered on recovery of wakefulness. But the 
predominance of evidence in the case is alto- 
gether on the side of continued mental activity. 
That, on waking, we remember nothing of this 
action that is going on during sleep, has little 
weight ; we do not remember much of what we 
know to have been in our thought, particularly 
of uninterested and unintentional thought. It 
would puzzle one to recall the total current of 
his lighter incidental thinking during the hour 
just passed ; to recall even much of it. We remem- 
ber, perhaps, if we are careful to attend to it, the 
thought that we happen to have just at the 
moment of waking; but the dream that has 



26 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

seemed to embrace numerous events of long con- 
tinuance, hours, days, years even, may have occu- 
pied only the waking moment. The oblivion 
attending disease is no disproof of a suspension 
of mental activity, as often recovered health brings 
back what had seemed to be forgotten. The 
presumption is all against the belief of such a 
cessation in sleep or in disease. The life of 
mind certainly continues, for memory can travel 
back to previous experiences, which would be 
impossible if any chasm intervened. And how- 
could this life of mind, which is in its very essence 
active, continue unless acting ? We have evidence 
of this continued action in the observed restless- 
ness of persons in sleep, showing a mental agita- 
tion of which, when they have awaked, they can 
perhaps remember nothing. 

So in the records of somnambulism it is shown 
that a long, well-connected series of actions, solv- 
ing intricate problems, composing letters, execut- 
ing works of art, as painting, and the like, may 
take place in sleep of which there is no recollec- 
tion on waking. The somnambulist sometimes 
seems to live two different lives. He remembers 
in his normal condition nothing of his somnam- 
bulistic experience, and conversely nothing of the 
latter when in his normal state. The great fact 
appears in these records, that there may be sim- 
ple suspension of power to recall into distinct 
consciousness mental acts and affections for days 
or weeks, without actual annihilation of them 
in the consciousness. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE ORGANIC NATURE OF MIND. 

§ 16. The human mind is to be recognized as 
having a proper organic nature. It is a part of a 
larger whole without itself, as it is also a kind of 
whole in relation to parts within itself. In each 
of these relationships, of part to a larger whole, 
and of whole to its own parts, it both ministers 
and is ministered to, existing and acting ever in 
sympathetic interaction, in respect both to outer 
realities and to its own inner diversified being. 

The human mind is a part of a larger whole — of 
a universe of being around it. Obvious and 
simple as is this truth, it is liable to be overlooked 
in philosophical speculation, and error easily slips 
in and vitiates our conclusions. As a part it is 
finite. The whole of which it is a part may con- 
ceivably be, or it may conceivably not be, 
bounded. There is a whole, embracing all 
smaller wholes or parts, which is not bounded. 
Indeed the idea of finiteness, of bounds or limita- 
tions, attaches properly only to the notion of a 
part. To think of a whole as bounded is at once 
to make it a part. The idea of a whole in itself 
excludes the notion of bound, which, when it 



2S GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

comes in, at once makes the former whole a part. 
A part is essentially and necessarily finite ; a 
whole in itself, as whole simply, excludes finite- 
ness or bound. If bounded, an object must be 
bounded by something else, and so the two are 
parts of a larger whole. The human mind as 
part is finite. It is limited in the range of its 
activity and also in the intensity of its activity. 
It can compass but a part of the universe of 
objects around it. Age and growth enlarge this 
sphere of its objects , but the more it takes in, 
the more capacious it becomes, the more does 
the sphere of objects widen and enlarge. Its 
energy too is limited. It is ever encountering 
forces which it finds itself incompetent to over- 
come or resist. Its history is at times to faint, 
and quail, and yield. Its very conquests are con- 
fessions of hopeless desires for the more that 
remains to be won. The poet sings and the 
philosopher boasts: " On earth there is nothing 
great but man ; in man there is nothing great but 
mind ; " yet both conclude with equal truth that 
this greatness " is nought but weakness and de- 
pendence." 

For this very finiteness, this limited, bounded 
nature of the human mind is not absolute. As 
organic, it is dependent. Its very activity waits 
to be moved at the beginning of its being by 
some outward object that comes to awaken and 
call it forth. It cannot even choose its object ; 
for before its beginning action it does not know 



THE ORGANIC NA TURE OF MIND. 29 

whether there be object for it, or if there be, 
where it may be, or what its character, or how it 
may be brought nigh to move the mind to its 
first exertion. So all along the course of its 
history, the human mind is dependent on things 
around it. 

The consciousness of this finiteness and de- 
pendence may be awakened in reflection on any 
occasion of the mind's action on its objects. 
That the human soul is but a part of the universe 
of being ; that there are, accordingly, other parts 
with which it exists in incessant interaction ; that 
there is a whole greater than itself, to which it 
can see no bounds, — infinitely greater, with 
which its own being is interlinked, — these are 
truths rooted in the very depths of its history. 
This sense of dependence, it has been in 
truth maintained, has as a necessary correlate 
the truth that there is an object — an infinite 
whole — and other objects — other parts of indef- 
inite extent — on which it more or less depends ; 
but it is erroneous to suppose that the sense of 
dependence exists before any activity of the mind 
is called forth, existing as a mysteriously inborn 
principle. Much more erroneous, if possible, is 
it to suppose that any such native sense of de- 
pendence can indicate beforehand the particular 
character of the object on which it depends. It 
is accordingly an illegitimate foundation for an 
argument for the existence of God ; for He can 
be known in his distinguishing attributes only as 



30 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

He manifests himself. The human mind is incom- 
petent to determine from itself, from its own 
nature or experiences, except in the most general 
way, the properties of the world of beings ex- 
ternal to itself. As it finds in actual experience 
that it can exert its native activity on other ob- 
jects around it, and as it finds itself thus to be a 
part of a larger whole, it may legitimately reason 
that these objects are more or less like itself, 
since otherwise they could not be parts of the 
same whole ; and that they are also more or less 
in sympathetic affinity to itself, since otherwise 
there could be no interaction between itself and 
them. But this sense of dependence, of relation- 
ship as a. part in sympathy with the external 
world of being, can arise only on the actual exer- 
tion of its activity in interaction with the objects 
on which it depends. Its life begins with action ; 
and there can be no sense or feeling, if at least we 
leave out of the account the impression which 
first determines it to act, anterior to such begin- 
ning of its life. 

§ 17. This characteristic of dependence in- 
volves the more positive organic attribute of sym- 
pathy. The human mind not only depends, but 
suffers, is passive. Its very activity is encom- 
passed or pervaded by this sympathetic nature 
through which it experiences — suffers, or is pas- 
sive to — the action of other realities in its uni- 
verse of being. It is never purely active, nor 
purely passive. Any particular mental state is 



THE ORGANIC NATURE OF MIND. 31 

characterized alike in both respects, as passive 
and as active ; yet not necessarily in equal degree. 
So we speak of the mind as a faculty, when we 
regard the active side, and as a capacity, when we 
regard the passive side of the experience. The 
mind is ever in all its states both faculty and 
capacity. 

As one part of a universe, the human mind 
stands in organic, that is, in sympathetically inter- 
acting relationships to the other parts. That it 
should be affected by them as well as itself react 
upon them, according to their respective natures, 
is involved in the very idea of a universe. All 
created things, so far as we can know them, are 
bound up together in one, and reciprocally act 
upon each other. The fact of this sympathetic 
interaction is one of universal recognition. To 
be subject to this law of reciprocal action, that is, 
to be truly sympathetic in its nature, is one of 
the most fundamental characteristics of mind ; one 
of its most comprehensive laws. Out of this 
characteristic in its constitution, as will be seen, 
are evolved the governing principles of one of the 
leading functions of mind. In this organic inter- 
action with other realities, the mind evinces its 
sympathetic nature ; it impresses and receives 
impressions ; communicates with other realities, 
imparting and receiving. 

§ 18. In an analogous way, the human mind pos- 
sesses the character of an organic whole in rela- 
tion to its own parts. It is in sympathy with 



32 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OE MIND. 

them, and they with one another. The whole 
mind never moves, no specific function moves, 
but in this reciprocal sympathy — acting and react- 
ing. The whole is affected, is characterized by 
each particular function, and each particular 
function is similarly affected and characterized by 
the whole organism, as well as by every other 
function. The whole nature of the human soul 
or spirit gives character to each specific act and 
affection ; and each feeling and thought and en- 
deavor gives character to the action of the whole 
mind, just as the several functions of respiration, 
circulation, digestion, interact with the animal 
body as a whole, as well as with one another. 
The special functions of the mind interact in like 
manner with one another. Our feelings influence 
our thoughts ; our thoughts determine our wills. 
Each function is in organic, sympathetic ministry 
to each of the others. Farther than this, each 
function is an organic whole to its parts ; and 
the same character of sympathetic interaction is 
to be recognized in it. The feelings influence 
subordinate feelings ; the thoughts subordinate 
thoughts; the purposes subordinate purposes; 
and all these subordinate acts or affections are in 
organic sympathy with one another. 

Throughout the entire structure of the human 
mind thus do we discover this grand characteristic 
and attribute. Out of it we shall evolve great 
determining, regulative laws of mental action 
and affection. The human mind is an organism. 



THE ORGANIC NA TURE OF MIND. 33 

Its whole life is in sympathetic interaction and 
ministry in relation to beings external to 
itself, and also ever maintains the same organic 
character in relation to itself and its own constit- 
uent functions. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF MIND. 

§ 19. We have recognized the mind as an 
organism with a threefold function. § 10. We 
have seen also that it is essential to the very life 
of mind that these its several functional activities 
should maintain a perpetual interaction with one 
another. § 18. Thought must act upon feeling 
as object and equally upon purpose ; and they in 
like manner upon thought and upon each other. 
The human mind knows thus its own feelings, 
knows its own purposes or determinations. It 
equally knows its own thoughts. " If I did not 
know that I knew," says Hamilton most truly, 
11 1 would not know ; if I did not know that I 
felt, I would not feel ; if I did not know that I 
desired, I would not desire." The self, the ego, 
would not be a true self or ego if destitute of this 
organic function of knowing all it does and feels. 
This self-knowing power possessed by the human 
mind is denominated consciousness. The etymol- 
ogy of this term and its use, both in familiar dis- 
course and also in scientific discussion, indicate 
very exactly its meaning. " Consciousness," says 
Locke, " is the perception of what passes in a 



THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF MIND. 35 

man's own mind." In like manner Reid affirms, 
" Consciousness is a word used by philosophers 
to signify that immediate knowledge which we 
have of our present thoughts, and purposes, and 
in general of all the present operations of our 
minds." . . . . " Consciousness is only of the 
things in the mind and not of external things." 
Hamilton says: "The expressions, I know that I 
knozv, I know that I feel, I knozv that I desire, are 
translated by / ant conscious that I know, I am 
conscious that I feel, I am conscious that I desire. 
Consciousness is thus the recognition by the 
mind or ego of its own acts and affections." 

Two characteristics stand out distinct and un- 
qualified in these representations of conscious- 
ness; first, that it is essentially a term denoting 
knowledge ; secondly, that its sphere of knowing 
in regard to its objects is exactly " what passes in 
the mind itself." Consciousness, then, in mental 
science, must be held ever to be characterized as 
simply a knowing function and is limited to the 
mind's own acts and affections. It is only a loose 
popular use of the term when it is said : " I was 
not conscious that the clock had struck; " "that 
the sun had risen," and the like ; as if we could 
be conscious of purely external objects. In the 
strict technical usage of exact thought we can be 
said to be conscious only of what passes in our 
own minds. 

The term, however, it should be observed, like 
other terms of similar character, although as cor- 



36 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

rcctly used, ever presenting this elemental contest 
of self-knowing, is employed with divers specific 
modifications of meaning. It is variously used 
to denote the power or faculty of self-knowledge, 
the exercise of this power, and the result of the 
exercise. The term is also sometimes loosely 
used to denote the mind or spirit itself, or the 
spiritual nature generally, and moreover its con- 
dition or state, or what it experiences, and partic- 
ularly here the abiding result of this experience. 
As a technical term in mental science it denotes 
simply self-knowing or self knowledge. 

§ 20. Consciousness is to be ever recognized as 
being essentially of an active nature — -a power or 
a function. To be conscious is to know. Con- 
sciousness must possess the properties and parts 
of knowledge generally, as we shall hereafter 
come to recognize them. It is of an active nature 
therefore as is knowledge. Only in the allowable 
looseness of familiar discourse, or the license of 
poetic and rhetorical usage, never in the exact- 
ness of science, can consciousness be truly repre- 
sented as a light. It is a beholder in its essential 
meaning. Neither can it be truly represented in 
scientific discussion as a condition, in anv other 
sense than as knowledge is a condition. It is 
illusive and misleading to represent it as that 
which must be supposed to be antecedent to all 
mental activity or affection, except in its loose use 
as a synonym of mind itself. The nature of such 
a supposed antecedent none can tell or even con 



THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF MIND. 37 

ceive. There is not anything back of the mind's 
acting to be imagined as antecedent condition to 
its acting, to its knowing, to its knowing its own 
acts, except indeed, the active nature itself and 
some object on which this active nature is to 
exert itself. Out of the groundless assumption 
concerning consciousness as such antecedent con- 
dition to mental action, which in its mysterious 
nature can be filled with all sorts of properties 
and relations — out of such mystic imaginings can 
come only illusion and error. Neither can con- 
sciousness be truly regarded as a field, in which 
the active mind may employ itself. It is the 
cultivator, the laborer, the producer, the active 
power. The field of consciousness can be noth- 
ing but the field in which consciousness exerts 
itself — the field of internal or mental phenomena, 
of actual mental products. It has no existence 
until after the mind has felt or acted. It does 
not condition or determine those acts or feelings , 
in strict scientific meaning consciousness only 
knows them — becomes cognizant of them — when 
existing. 

Consciousness is but one form of knowledge. 
There is a knowledge which respects objects 
without the mind, objects that are presented to 
the mind through the physical senses and also 
objects that, being themselves of a purely spirit- 
ual nature, address the mind directly through its 
own apprehensive sense. This form of knowledge 
is precisely distinguished from the knowledge 



3S GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OE MIND. 

called consciousness or conscious knowledge, by 
the characteristic that its objects are external to 
the mind while those of conscious knowledge are 
entirely within the mind. 

Consciousness accordingly is not to be reckoned 
as a fourth function of mental activity, co-ordi- 
nate with the functions of feeling, thought, and 
will. It is as a knowing function simply a subor- 
dinate function of the intelligence. Consciousness 
is one form of knowledge— knowledge confined 
to the self ; other knowledge respects the not- 
self. The knowing nature in these two forms of 
knowledge is the same ; the object which it re- 
spects only is changed. There can therefore be 
no more mystery in consciousness, in self-know- 
ing, than in knowing external objects. 

But farther, consciousness, strictly speaking, 
gives only that form of knowledge which is denom- 
inated perceptive or intuitive, in distinction from 
reflective knowledge. It simply observes, per- 
ceives, intuits, the mental act or affection as a 
phenomenon of mind. The discriminative act 
which analyzes the act or affection, distinguishes 
its characters or contents and judges what they 
are, follows the action of consciousness in observ- 
ing. The knowledge given in consciousness is 
thus only immediate, inchoative knowledge, not 
full, completed knowledge, such as is first 
gained when a proper judgment emerges. Con- 
sciousness gives only perceptive or intuitive, not 
attributive Knowledge. § 137. 



THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF MIND. *" 39 

Conscious knowledge, being thus immediate 
and of an object nearest possible to view, and 
accordingly exempt from the liabilities to mistake 
that may attend means or instruments of knowing, 
is of the first and most commanding order. No 
testimony respecting real things can outrank that 
of consciousness. 

But while consciousness is recognized as strictly 
self-knowledge, its sphere being entirely circum- 
scribed by the mind's own modifications, Sir 
William Hamilton contends that this immediate 
knowledge, given in consciousness, embraces also 
the external object which interacts with the mind 
and impresses it. " I see," he reasons, " the ink- 
stand. How can I be conscious that my present 
modification exists — that it is a perception and 
not another mental state, and finally, that it is a 
perception of the inkstand only, unless my con- 
sciousness comprehends within its sphere the 
object, which at once determines the existence 
of the act, qualifies its kind, and distinguishes its 
individuality? Annihilate the inkstand, you 
annihilate the perception ; annihilate the con- 
sciousness of the object, you annihilate the Con- 
sciousness of the operation." He admits that it 
sounds strange to say, " I am conscious of the 
inkstand," but maintains that the apparent incon- 
gruity of the expression arises from the prevalence 
of erroneous doctrines of perception. The difficulty 
of Hamilton arises from his failure to observe the 
sharp distinction between apprehensive and attrib- 



40 * GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

utive knowledge — between perceptive or intuitive 
and reflective. In fact, he represents consciousness 
as discriminative and as involving judgment and 
even memory. Still he holds that consciousness 

is an immediate knowledge and enumerates only 
three things as necessarily involved in it — a 
knowing subject, a modification, and a recognition 
of the modification by the subject. These three 
things are clearly reducible to two— the knowing 
or conscious power and the modification ; so that 
it is the mental modification only of which con- 
sciousness in its simplicity takes cognizance. 

Consciousness, then, as the function of self- 
knowledge, giving only immediate, perceptive or 
intuitive, and not analytic and attributive knowl- 
edge, and having for its object some modifica- 
tion of the mind, some mental act or affection, 
must be held to regard that object only as a 
concrete ; it is the mind itself, but the mind as 
acting or feeling in some specific way that is 
regarded in consciousness, just as in the imme- 
diate perceptive knowledge given in vision 
the perception takes in the concrete whole — the 
bird flying or the fish swimming. The analytic 
discrimination into subject and attribute — the 
bird as subject and the flying as attribute — is pos- 
terior to the perception ; this is an act of re- 
flective knowledge. Consciousness takes notice 
of the mind as modified — as acting or feeling. 
It is this concrete which is its proper object. We 
use language in a loose, unscientific way, accord- 



THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF MIND. 41 

ingly, when we speak of consciousness as having 
the pure ego, or self, irrespectively of its acting 
or feeling, as its proper object. In scientific 
discourse such representation is erroneous and 
leads to unsound speculation. Self-conscious- 
ness in exact truth always regards the self not 
abstractly, but in concrete act or affection. 

But a modification of the mind, a mental act 
or affection, involves an object as well as a 
subject. It is ever an interaction of mind 
and object, in which both meet. Conscious- 
ness takes cognizance of this interaction, which 
takes place within the mind itself, with all 
the peculiarities that characterize it. Its vis- 
ion takes in, however, only the interaction, the 
impression. The outer object in itself does 
not come within its range of view, except in 
its working, as a force from without actually 
impressing or engaging the mind. Consciousness 
may present grounds of inference as to what the 
object may be ; it does not immediately observe 
the inkstand. The same state of mind might 
be occasioned by a mere image of the inkstand, 
by internal nervous affection, by some exterior 
force. It is competent to affirm perhaps thus the 
reality of a world without as discerning the two- 
fold character of the interaction : but, what the na- 
ture of that exterior something is, what its form, 
its mode of working, its relations to the world 
without, consciousness itself does not observe. 
Here comes in the function of reflective thought. 



42 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

This analytic movement of thought proper may 
follow so quick upon observation by consciousness, 
that the two acts may seem to be one. The 
truth remains: consciousness simply observes ; 
it does not analyze ; it gives no attributive cog- 
nition. It observes, we repeat, the mental affec- 
tion, the impression, the interaction ; it does not 
take cognizance of what produces the affection 
or impression ; it does not observe the inkstand 
while yet it may observe the immediately suc- 
ceeding movement of thought by which the 
object producing the impression is inferred to be 
the inkstand. 

§ 21. Consciousness is variously modified, both 
in degree and also in range. 

As is true of all mental activity the human 
consciousness varies in the vigor or intensity 
of its action. It varies with native energy, with 
bodily health and condition, with advance in age 
and experience, with growth and culture. In 
specific exercises, also, we speak of being "fully 
conscious," " clearly " or " distinctly conscious," or 
of being " feebly " or "indistinctly conscious"; 
and we speak also of being " entirely unconscious." 

In like manner, the human consciousness is 
variously modified in respect to its range of 
object. While, generally speaking, all mental acts 
and affections lie properly within its range — and 
nothing but such acts and affections — in fact, only 
a part, a very small part, can be truly said to be 
at any one time in actual view. The very finite- 



THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF MIND. 43 

ness of the human mind involves this. It can no 
more truly take cognizance of all its own modifi- 
cations at any one moment than it can be cog- 
nizant of all that passes in the world around it at 
once. There are thus what have been called 
" latent modifications " of the mind, acts or affec- 
tions, which, although lying within the realm -of 
consciousness, escape its notice. In this fact we 
find the explanation of certain mental phenom- 
ena. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SPONTANEITY AND SELF-DETERMINATE- 
NESS OF THE MIND. 

§22. THE mind, as an essentially active na- 
ture, must begin its being in action. This be- 
ginning exercise of activity cannot of course 
be self-caused. It is determined by the power 
that created the mind itself. This activity 
originating, thus in a source external to the 
mind continues on, as we have seen, never en- 
tirely superseded by the mind's power of self- 
control. There is no good ground for supposing 
that it ever ceases. We are conscious of an ever- 
flowing current of mental activity that we 
neither originate ourselves nor sustain. Often, 
indeed, we are but too sensible that it holds on 
against our express endeavor to check it. It 
flows on during sleep and sweeps on even during 
periods of unconsciousness, connecting our past 
experience with our present. It takes hold of 
our self-originated exertions and bears them on 
often without any effort of our own. The 
thought starts perhaps through an express de- 
termination of our will; it holds on by a power 
of its own, at least by a power that is not prop- 
erly of the will itself, but rather from above and 



THE SPONTANEITY OF THE MIND. 45 

upon it. This activity, thus primitive and last- 
ing, which involves an element other than that 
of mere continuousness, we call spontaneous to dis- 
tinguish from that other activity which we recog- 
nize as coming from our own determination — from 
our free-will, which is hence designated voluntary 
or volitional, self-determined, and also from that 
kind of activity which necessarily takes place in 
us from the action of external realities upon us. 
Our thoughts and our imaginings are so-called 
spontaneities as distinguished from the free 
exercises of the will. But these exercises of the 
will themselves, after being freely put forth, also 
participate in this spontaneity. We have thus only 
to purpose, as to take a walk, and the purpose 
is kept alive through this primitive spontaneity 
of mind, and we keep on walking without any 
fresh determination of will. The will continues 
its action in that particular way of purposing the 
walking. 

§23. The free-will is accordingly to be dis- 
tinctly recognized as a characteristic function 
of the human mind, and as distinct from what 
is purely spontaneous or necessary in its nature. 
We are conscious of the exercises of this func- 
tion. We recognize this freedom in others. We 
regard ourselves as responsible for the right exer- 
cise of this determining power, and hold others 
to a like responsibility for their free action. This 
self-determining power is the dominant power 
in our mental nature. It presides over the 



46 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

mind's natural activity, controls within certain lim- 
its the direction in which it shall flow, and regu- 
lates to a certain extent the measure of its inten- 
sity. We are free thus to choose the commanding 
aim and end of our lives, or direct the ruling ap- 
petency or craving of our natures and so form 
and fix our characters. We to a certain extent, 
also, freely control our mental growth and cul- 
ture, making ourselves superior often to circum- 
stances, making even such circumstances as are 
in themselves adverse and untoward to be help- 
ful by our triumph over them. Struggle 
develops strength ; and opposition subdued is 
made subservient and ministering to our over- 
coming purpose. The activity of the mind, 
spontaneous from its creation and ever continuous 
through its existence, is also free and self- 
determined. " 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus 
and thus. The power and corrigible authority of 
this lies in our own wills." 

§ 24. Whether spontaneous or free, all mental 
activity flows on towards a result — an end. It is 
not to be characterized as driftless. It has a dis- 
tinguishable drift or tendency, which, however 
much modified by occasion or circumstance or ex- 
ternal condition, is never utterly lost. It is not 
the mere sport of circumstance, nor is it in itself 
wholly without trend or definite set. Nothing 
indeed " walks with aimless feet." We are sen- 
sible in ourselves that our mental activity, our 
thoughts, our feelings, our purposes, our whole 



THE SPONTANEITY OF THE MIND. 47 

mental natures, flow on in the direction in which 
they are set. We observe, too, that both individ- 
ually and collectively men are generally sure, if 
undisturbed, to hold on in a course once entered 
upon. In fact, we recognize, from manifold 
views and considerations, that the mind of man 
has a true rational nature, imparting an end or 
aim or design in its being and its action. So far, 
thus, as the activity of the mind is rational, it is 
properly telle, ever tending to an end or result. 

This general end or result of mental activity is 
to be recognized as good or evil. We cannot 
question that the creature of a wise and benefi- 
cent maker was fashioned for good, so that in the 
designed and legitimate direction of itself and of 
its powers it would finally reach a goal that is on 
the whole good. Endowed with freedom the 
creature himself may misdirect the current of his 
being as designed by his creator, and so, missing 
the good, fall into the evil. The entire current of 
the mental life may thus be misdirected ; and spe- 
cific powers or functions also may be perverted. 
The fitting end, however, is ever neared ; the life 
as a whole trends ever to an end that is good or 
evil, and each specific endeavor with the different 
specific habits of life has a corresponding trend. 
The course maybe arrested, the direction turned; 
but the tendency, the drift, is ever present with 
the entire mental activity and with each specific 
exertion. But for this great telic characteristic 
of mental activity we should be powerless as to 



4S GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

forming our characters, or shaping our destinies. 
As will be seen hereafter, moreover, this telic 
characteristic of mind, this drift towards an end 
or object, gives character to certain of our feel- 
ings. Our passive nature being impressed under 
the influence of this natural drift of the mental 
life towards some object assumes the form of a 
craving. Its nature seeks the object towards 
which it thus tends or drives ; it experiences a 
want. The modifications of this feeling of want 
appear in the form of propensities, appetites, 
and desires. In this way, this drifting feature 
of mind determines in the passive affections of 
the soul an important class of the feelings. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE RELATIVITY OF THE MIND. 

§ 25. As organic part of a larger whole the 
human mind exists in relation both to the whole 
itself and to the other parts of that whole. As it- 
self an organic whole, it exists also in relation to 
its own parts, and these parts exist in reciprocal 
relation to one another. This relativity in the 
existence of the mind appears at once of immense 
extent and immensely diversified. In the ex- 
pressions, " the necessary relativity of the human 
mind," " the necessary relativity of human knowl- 
edge," a large diversity of specific meanings may 
be comprehended. It is of the first importance 
therefore that speculations in this field of thought 
should with peculiar care maintain a firm hold on 
the specific application of the term which is in- 
tended. 

There are several forms of this relativity per- 
taining to the human mind, which it seems par- 
ticularly needful for clearness and for security 
against error in our studies of mind, to specify 
and define. It should be noticed, at the start, 
that a relative attribute pertaining to an object 
determines nothing as to the essential attributes 



50 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIX D. 

of the object. These essential attributes, that is, 
the essence of the object or concretely the object 
itself, must exist before there can be any relation- 
ship to other things. 

§ 26. In the manifold relativity of the human 
mind is to be recognized as first and most funda- 
mental, the relation already intimated of real to 
.real — of the mind as a real existence to other real 
existences. As organic part of a universe of real 
existences the human mind exists and acts by 
necessary implication in the relation of a real to 
a real. That itself is real implies that the other 
parts with which it constitutes an organic whole 
are also real. The grand fact that it is an or- 
ganic part and is real itself proves that it is in re- 
lation not to phantoms, but to realities. It in- 
teracts in fact with them ; and interaction in- 
volves reality. It involves activity as well as 
reality. The human mind can interact only with 
other active natures. Still farther, as a rational 
nature, a trifunctional organism, its interaction 
is with other rational natures. A function im- 
plies, as a necessary correlative, an object ; and 
diversity of function implies a certain diversity of 
object. In respect to each mental function and 
the action of each there must be its correlative 
object and a fitting condition of the object in 
order to be affected by the action. Every spe- 
cific act of one mind respects thus, exists in re- 
lation to, an affection of some other mind. Or to 
use a form of statement that shall avoid any im- 



THE RELATIVITY OF THE MIND. 51 

plication of favor to any of the different theories 
as to the nature of matter, any specific energy 
going forth from my mind fastens upon a correl- 
ative energy in some other reality which accord- 
ingly must exist in a condition to receive the act ; 
the active implies the passive : the imparting im- 
plies the receiving ; each with a character corre- 
sponding in some measure and way to the char- 
acter of the other. We must presume, therefore, 
that the three functions of the human mind have 
their correlatives in the objects which they re- 
spectively regard. If, as the usage in philosoph- 
ical discussion warrants, and popular usage abund- 
antly supports, we designate by the term idea any 
specific act or affection of mind, then in the inter- 
action between mind and its object idea meets 
idea ; — idea as specific act of mind meets idea 
as specific affection of mind. Nothing but 
strength of bias or dullness of thought can infer 
from this the identity of mind and object. The 
very statement imports the exact opposition of 
one to the other. 

§ 27. We have then in the trifunctional activity 
of the mind a threefold division of ideas as active 
or as put forth by the mind itself or of subject- 
ive ideas — those of intelligence, sensibility, and 
will, otherwise named cognitive, aesthetic, and 
purposive ideas. The presumption now is that 
we shall find a threefold division of ideas as object. 
This division, in fact, the history of thought 
and the literature of the world, has recognized as 



52 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

the objective division — the division into the true, 
the beautiful, and the good. These are the 
three great ideas, the three comprehensive ideas, 
which have come down to us through the acres. 

Each of these divisions, the subjective and the 
objective, has been accepted with substantially 
unanimous consent. The one is the more recent, 
the other the more ancient. The literatures of 
the modern and the ancient world show corre- 
sponding tendencies of thought. Each may be 
regarded as the recognized classification of mental 
phenomena, more suited to the habits of thought 
in its own time, while yet equally valid for all 
other times. 

As the intelligence, the sensibility, and the 
will make up the entirety of the mental functions, 
so that we cannot conceive of the mind as acting 
except through one or other of these func- 
tions, so in the object of the mind's action, we 
cannot conceive of any character pertaining to it 
other than these three — the true, the beautiful, 
the good — at least of this order. And as the 
mind, as one organic whole, even when one func- 
tion predominates, must be at the same time also 
exerting its other functions, just as the animal 
body carries on all its functions together, even 
although one may exhibit at times greatly pre- 
ponderant activity, so in every object of mental 
action the three ideas ever co-exist inseparably. 
However much one may predominate in a given 
case, or however much one may engage our con- 



THE RELA TIVITY OF THE MIND. 53 

templation or our thought, the others are still 
there in the object. Not an object can be con- 
ceived which in some respect or some degree is 
not at the same time true, and beautiful, and 
good. 

§ 28. Still further, the threefold functions have 
each its respective object. The function of 
intelligence has for its object the true. This 
function deals with nothing else in the object but 
the true ; its sphere is entirely bounded by the 
true. The term, as used here, will be understood 
as a category embracing all gradations of the 
true — from the perfectly true to the absolutely 
false. So, on the other hand, the true is object 
for the intelligence alone — for no other function 
of the mind. The intelligence may be exactly 
defined accordingly as the function of the true. 

The function of the sensibility, using the term 
in its full meaning as inclusive of both the active 
side and the passive side, in like manner has for 
its object the beautiful. This function deals 
with nothing else but the beautiful, including 
here, of course, the several gradations from the 
perfectly beautiful to the positively ugly. And 
the beautiful is proper object for no other func- 
tion of the mind. The sensibility, including the 
imagination as its active side, may accordingly be 
defined as the function of the beautiful, or more 
properly as the function of form — the beautiful 
being only the perfect in form. § 31. 

In the same way the will has for its object the 



54 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

good, with its gradations from the perfectly good 
to the positively bad. It deals with nothing but 
the good in object. And the good is exclusive 
object for the will, which function might be de- 
fined as the function of the good. 

§ 29. This twofold classification of mental 
phenomena into (1), the subjective, of function, as 
of intelligence, of form, including sensibility and 
imagination, and of will, and (2), the objective, of 
object, as true, beautiful, and •£*?<?£/, must, it is 
believed, be accepted not only as true but also as 
beyond all comparison the most scientific that 
the present stage of the science of mind can 
receive. The correctness of the classification is 
corroborated by its correspondence with another 
classification which has been in familiar use since 
the days of Aristotle. In different works of his, 
Aristotle gives in scientific formality, with a re- 
iteration that attests his conviction of its vast im- 
portance to science, a fourfold enumeration of 
causes — known in subsequent science as the 
efficient, the essential, the formal, and the final 
or telic. His efficient cause is obviously the 
mental energy or activity which creates or pro- 
duces. The essential cause is as clearly the 
object produced, viewed in respect to its essence 
or the complement of properties congruously 
united to constitute it one whole, so that the 
intelligence may accept it as true by identifying 
it as a whole with its several parts or properties, 
and each part as congruously related to every 



THE RELATIVITY OF THE MIND. 55 

other part or property. The formal cause is the 
object viewed as form or that by which it is com- 
municable to mind, the perfect in form being the 
beautiful in the stricter sense. The final or telic 
cause, that for the sake of which the object exists 
or is produced, is the object viewed in respect to 
its end or pupose as that which may be chosen or 
willed, and is named from the perfect in this 
respect — the good. The essential cause addresses 
itself thus to the intelligence as the true and 
causes thought. The formal cause addresses the 
sensibility as the beautiful and causes the affection 
denominated by that term or the sense of beauty ; 
and the final or telic cause addresses the will as 
the good and causes volition or choice. 

It may be added here that, as will appear 
under the proper head, we may in our thought 
view any object of mental activity either as sub- 
stance or as cause. If we view any object as sub- 
stance, or as that which has attributes of quality, 
we have the objective classification of possible 
mental phenomena in relation to the object of 
mental activity, — we have the true, the beautiful, 
and the good. If we view any object as cause in 
its relation to mental activity, as affecting or de- 
termining it, that is, if we view it as having attri- 
butes of action, we have the subjective classifica- 
tion of the possible modes of this activity — we 
have the intelligence, the sensibility and imagi- 
nation, and the will. This classification of objects 
with which the mind interacts, or with which it 



56 GENERAL ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

has to do, in respect to substance and cause as 
the only distinctions in this respect that are pos- 
sible in the nature of thought, is exhaustive. The 
subordinate distinctions, under the respective 
classes of attributes of quality and action, giving 
on the one hand, under the attribute of quality, 
that of the true, the beautiful, and the good, and 
on the other, under the attribute of cause, that of 
essence, form, and end, must each be recognized 
also as exhaustive. It is not possible, certainly, 
in the present light of science, to conceive of any 
addition to either. They are, moreover, in their 
respective subdivisions co-ordinate and congruous 
- — neither overlapping any one of the others. 
Moreover, each exactly corresponds to its respect- 
ive subdivision in the other. There is also the 
like correspondence as already indicated between 
each subdivision, under each of these two objective 
classifications with each of the respective subdi- 
visions of the subjective or functional classifica- 
tion. True and essence correspond thus with the 
intelligence ; beautiful and form with the sensi- 
bility and the imagination ; and good and end 
with the will. As every mental act or mental 
affection has these two component factors and 
only these two, that of subject or function and 
that of object, we have the most decisive grounds 
conceivable for accepting all these classifications 
as true and as final for science. 

We can hardly overestimate the importance of 
a full and clear recognition of these classifications 



THE RELA TIVITY OF THE MIND. 57 

in their exact correspondence with each other in 
their several parts as well as in the grounds of 
the classifications, for the satisfactory determina- 
tion of the nature and relationships of each of the 
distinguishable modes of mental action and affec- 
tion on the one hand, or on the other for the sat- 
isfactory prosecution of the studies of mental 
phenomena. Each separate function may be 
explored in the light of its particular object, 
whether viewed as substance or cause ; and the 
study may pass at pleasure from one to the other 
with assurance that the change is not from the 
matter under study but only from one point of 
view to another, a change not of object but only 
of light. It will be borne in mind that the study 
here referred to is the study only of special func- 
tions and only of special features of object. 
There will still remain the study of mind as one 
organic whole acting through and in these special 
functions and in relation to a corresponding or- 
ganic whole of object related to mental activity 
in the specific forms of its addresses to the mind 
as subject. We find here the justifying ground 
for the fourfold distribution of our studies of 
mental action in respect to function already stated : 

1, The Sensibility and the Imagination, or the 
special Function of Form, or of the Beautiful ; 

2, The Intelligence, the special Function of the 
Essence, or of the True ; 3, The Will, the special 
Function of Ends, or of the Good ; and 4, The 
Reason, the organic Function of Mind as one 
whole in relation to the universe of object. 



BOOK II 

THE SENSIBILITY.— I. SUBJECTIVE 
VIEW. 



CHAPTER I. 

ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 

§ 30. THE SENSIBILITY IS THE MIND'S CAPAC- 
ITY OF FEELING. 

We have recognized the mind in its organic 

nature as in sympathetic interaction with other 
realities, § 17, — as passive and receptive, as well 
as essentially active. Its activity being that of 
a finite and dependent nature that has a begin- 
ning of its existence, and ever implying an object 
on which it is exerted, can be awakened into pos- 
itive action only as it is addressed and so called 
forth by its object. The human mind begins its 
action accordingly only as acted upon, receiving 
impression, in other words, only with feeling ; and 
its succeeding action is at every step and all 
along attended by feeling. It is prompted in 
every specific motion by feeling ; it is sustained 
in its action by feeling ; it is followed in its 
action by feeling. It moves ever in feeling and 



ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 59 

is ever feeling while it is acting. Every act of 
knowledge must be preceded by the feeling 
which the object of the knowledge calls forth 
when it is presented to the mind ; and every 
such act is followed by its proper reflex impres- 
sion on the sensibility. The same is true of every 
act of willing. Only as feeling predominates and 
characterizes the mental state, however, is the 
state denominated a state of feeling — a mode of 
the sensibility. 

The terms of the definition, it will be noticed, 
regard the passive side of this mental state or func- 
tion. The term sensibility denotes, thus, in its 
stricter and more proper import, rather the pas- 
sive than the active side. So likewise the terms 
capacity and feeling, as already stated, more prop- 
erly point to the mind as passive, as impressed or 
determined. But all the terms are, in popular 
use, also employed in an active sense. The term 
sensibility particularly is so identified in psycho- 
logical discussions with this function of the mind 
as one of the three general comprehensive modes 
of mental life, co-ordinately with the functions of 
the intelligence and the will, that it seems to be 
the fittest term to introduce to the particular 
study of its nature and modifications. 

§ 31. In strict truth, however, this function is 
to be regarded as participating in the same active 
nature as the other functions ; and, hence, more 
properly it might be named the function of form. 
By form is meant that characteristic or attribute 



6o THE SENSIBILITY. 

of the mind through which it communicates or 
interacts with other minds or beings. The mind 
exists in connection with other minds; it is 
moved to feeling by them and moves them to 
feeling ; it impresses other minds and is impressed 
by them ; it determines them and is determined 
by them; in a word, it interacts with them. This 
communion and interaction is by virtue of what 
may properly be designated as its characteristic 
oiform. We define form, accordingly, as that at- 
tribute of mind by which it interacts sympathet- 
ically with other realities ; by which it communi- 
cates with them, impressing and receiving impres- 
sion. 

But the perfect in form is known as the beauti- 
ful. The beautiful is exactly defined as the per- 
fect in form. This term, however, has been prop- 
erly and generally used, in scientific treatment at 
least, to include all modifications from the per- 
fectly beautiful to the positively ugly, so that 
under it is comprehended all that is included in 
the term form. The function of form is exactly 
defined, accordingly, as the function of the beauti- 
ful ; it is that function of the mind which is en- 
gaged with the beautiful — the term being used in 
its large sense as inclusive, not only of the per- 
fectly beautiful, but also the imperfectly beauti- 
ful and the positively ugly. 

The terms idea and form are not exactly 
synonymous, although often used interchange- 
ably. The former term, idea, is popularly used to 



ITS NA TURE AND MODIFICA TIONS. 61 

denote any kind of expressed mental activity, 
whether thought, or imagination, or purpose ; 
while form, regards idea more specifically as inter- 
action of mind with mind : it is idea as in inter- 
action or intercommunication. 

§ 32. The whole doctrine of this department 
of mental activity, in which the activity appears 
as the function of form, rests squarely on this 
fundamental fact in mental phenomena that the 
mind lives and acts within a community of minds 
with which it is ever interacting — impressing and 
being impressed, determining and being deter- 
mined. The mind being thus essentially sym- 
pathetic, sympathy is the basis and source of all 
the phenomena of the sensibility and of the im- 
agination. It gives the comprehensive law as it 
is the indispensable condition of all feeling. Only 
as sympathetic, as capable of communicating with 
other beings, as capable of being impressed or de- 
termined by them or by other departments of 
the mind's own activity, could there be feeling. 
And all the modes of feeling are characterized by 
this radical feature and are to be studied in the 
light of it. The term sympathy is employed in- 
deed in more popular usage to denote feeling as 
in accord with the feeling of some other being ; 
but it is properly and frequently employed in a 
more comprehensive sense, so as to include all men- 
tal affection determined by some other being, or 
the capacity of such affection. It is in this larger 
import the term is here used as denoting that in 



6j THE SENSIBILITY. 

the nature of mind by which it can be in commun- 
ion with other beings. 

The terms sympathy and form thus point to the 
same feature in the constitution and life of mind, 
and differ onlyinpresentingthis feature in different 
modifications of the relations of the sensibility : 
sympathy bringing into view more the object of 
the affection, form confining the view more to 
the affection itself. 

§ 33. In the interaction of minds there are two 
sides — an 'imparting and a receiving. Form is 
accordingly of a twofold character : it is active, as 
imparting or impressing — forma formans ; and 
passive, as receiving or being impressed — forma 
formata. We have thus active sensibility and 
passive sensibility. But we have a synonymous 
term in familiar use — imagination — denoting the 
same function of .form and in both senses, as active 
— communicative of form or faculty of form, and 
also as passive — receptive of form or capacity of 
form. We have thus both the active imagination 
and the passive imagination. But good use justi- 
fies, and both convenience and clearness require, 
that in scientific treatment at least the former term 
— sensibility — be separately appropriated to the 
passive side of the function, so as to denote the 
capacity of form, while the other term — imagina- 
tion — is appropriated to the active side, so as to 
denote the faculty of form. 

§ 34. The sensibility proper is accordingly de- 
fined as the capacity of being impressed, and its 



ITS NA TURE AND MODIFICA TIONS. 63 

affections or states are feelings. The imagination 
is the faculty of impressing or communicating, 
and its products are forms. 

But feeling and form, sensibility and imagina- 
tion, belong to the same function and are related 
to each other as passive and active, as the two 
sides in all interaction. The nature of each re- 
flects the nature of the other ; and all correct 
scientific treatment must keep both in view as in 
this inseparable connection with each other. 
Neither should be subordinated to the intelli- 
gence or the cognitive function, as neither has, 
except as co-ordinate in a common organic life, 
anything of the proper cognitive nature in it. 
Sensation and imagination, with memory, belong 
entirely to the function of form. 

§ 35. The sensibility proper, or the capacity of 
form, is modified ; — First, extrinsically, in respect 
to the object or source of the feeling ; and sec- 
ondly, intrinsically, in respect to purity or sim- 
plicity and to degree and intensity. 

These general modifications give rise to so 
many kinds of feelings, with their respective sub- 
divisions. 

I. Extrinsically, or in respect to the object or 
source of the feeling, the feelings are distinguished 
into two classes : — 

1. Those which flow from the general life of 
the soul or attend the exercise of its several func- 
tions, without particular reference to the object 



64 THE SENSIBILITY. 

awakening them, denoted by the general terms — 
pleasure and pain ; and 

2. Those which are determined by some spe- 
cific object. Of this class there are two species, 
according as the object is material or mental, — 
sensations and emotions. 

II. Intrinsically considered, the feelings are, in 
the first place, either simple or complex. The feel- 
ings already enumerated, those of pleasure and 
pain, the sensations and emotions, are properly 
simple in themselves, but suffer readily complica- 
tion in divers ways. 

The complex feelings are of two classes accord- 
ing as the complication is with the object or with 
other mental acts or affections. The first class 
includes as subdivisions (i) the affections, which 
simply flow out and terminate on their objects ; 
and (2) the desires, which reach after their objects 
to grasp and appropriate them to the mind's own 
uses. 

The second class of the complex feelings in 
which the affection is complicated with some other 
mental act or affection, as of intelligence or will, 
are denominated sentiments. As complicated 
with the intelligence and characterized by that, 
they are contemplative, and as complicated with 
the will, they are practical. 

The feelings are intrinsically modified, in the 
second place, in respect to degree or intensity, as 
they vary from well-nigh apathetic calmness to 
the fury of ungoverned passion. 



ITS NA TURE AND MODIFICA TIONS. 65 

§ 36. In accordance with this general analysis, 
the phenomena of the sensibility as the capacity 
of form will be considered in successive chapters 
in the following order, viz. : 

The Feelings of Pleasure and Pain ; 

The Sensations ; 

The Emotions ; 

The Affections ; 

The Desires ; 

The Sentiments ; 

The Passions. 
The phenomena of the Imagination or the faculty 
of form will be considered in subsequent chapters 
by themselves. 

So far as thus indicated the consideration of 
this department of mental activity will have been 
subjective, presenting only the affections and acts 
of the mind itself. But mental action implies an 
object ; and the special object of the function of 
form is, as before stated, the beautiful. The 
science of the beautiful is known under the name 
of ^Esthetics. Inasmuch as it has to do more ex- 
actly with beautiful objects as realized in nature 
or art, it has a still more definite province and 
method. But the science of the mental function 
can hardly be regarded as complete without some 
consideration of its object. It will, at all events, 
be interesting and instructive to consider this ob- 
jective side of this class of mental phenomena. 
Following the chapters on the sensibility and the 
imagination, accordingly, distinct chapters will be 
5 



66 THE SENSIBILITY. 

presented on the nature and the generic forms of 
the beautiful considered both in respect to the 
production and also the interpretation of beauty. 
The method of treatment will, however, be psy- 
chological rather than properly aesthetic, being 
determined from the subject — the mind — con- 
sidered in itself or in immediate relation to the 
object. It will be in the order of a presentation 
of the function of form in the immediate light of 
its object — the beautiful. ^Esthetic science re- 
spects, as stated, the result or product of the 
union of these two factors, and has its form and 
method determined to it by this product which 
appears more prominently in the two grand 
divisions of Beauty in art and Beauty in nature. 



CHAPTER II. 

PLEASURE AND PAIN. 

§ 37. PLEASURE and Pain are among the most 
familiar phenomena of the human soul and most 
universally recognized. In the popular mind 
there is entire accord as to their general char- 
acter. They are recognized universally as feel- 
ings. We feel pleasure ; we feel its opposite, 
pain. We do not by thinking produce pleasure 
as the direct product of thought ; we do not will 
it into being. Pleasure and pain are felt ; they 
are determined to us. The soul in experiencing 
them is in a recipient, passive condition ; it is 
acted upon, impressed, affected. Imagination, 
thought, purpose, are activities ; pleasure and 
pain cannot be conceived as such, but only as af- 
fections of an active nature. Pleasure, taught 
Aristotle, is neither motion nor production ; it 
does not move, it does not produce ; it does not 
act. It is precisely the opposite of this ; it is 
moved, it is produced ; it is passive. 

In the interaction of the mind with other act- 
ive natures there are involved the impressing and 
the impressed ; the active and the passive. The 
passive side of the phenomenon is, as we have ex- 



6S THE SENSIBILITY. 

plained, feeling. But in the experience of pleas- 
ure and pain, there is no such interaction neces- 
sarily concerned ; at least, none of this ordinary 
character. The feelings of pleasure and pain 
differ thus radically from other feelings, which 
are the result of interacting parts in sympathy 
with each other. I bestow a favor on a neighbor; 
I interact sympathetically with him ; I am on the 
active side in bestowing, he is on the passive side 
in receiving; I act, he feels. But each experi- 
ences pleasure ; I in bestowing, he in accepting. 
The pleasure is not the act nor the affection in 
this interaction. It yet attends upon both. 
Neither he nor I create the pleasure ; it comes 
to each ; is determined to us. Pleasure, then, is 
properly from a source back of the interaction — 
the giving and the receiving. It attaches to the 
nature of the mind. The mind is so constituted as 
to experience pleasure from its acts and also from 
its affections. Pleasure is the feeling, the state 
determined to the mind, by its creator. It 
comes from him ; is communicated immediately 
or remotely by him, in his ordering of our being 
and condition. No will or endeavor of ours, no 
endeavor of others can create it, can produce it 
in any other sense than that of giving occasion 
for its appearance in our consciousness. 

§ 38. We find thus the universal law of pleas- 
ure, that it is the concomitant of the mind's 
activity appointed in its very creation. Pleasure 
or pain thus waits, in greater or less degree, on 



PLEASURE AND PAIN. 69 

every exertion of the essential activity of the 
human mind as also on every affection. As this 
activity can go forth only in the interaction of 
the mind with other natures, the more specific 
statement of the law of pleasure and pain is 
this : pleasure comes, in its fullest degree admis- 
sible in the nature of the soul, on occasion of the 
most perfect interaction — the freest and fullest 
legitimate activity on the one hand and the 
freest and fullest fitting condition of acting on the 
other. It comes, as Aristotle's keen insight rec- 
ognized, not as a state pertaining to the action or 
existing in it, but as an end, a result, coming to 
it, as fruitage to bloom. It ".ends out " action- 
Such is the origin and source of pleasure and 
pain — from the constituted nature of the mind; 
and such is the law of its appearance — pleasure 
in right action and affection and favoring con- 
dition, pain in wrong action and affection and un- 
toward condition. 

This view accords with the theory concerning 
the creation and ordering of the universe, that hap- 
piness, pleasure in its largest and best sense, as 
blessedness, ^ is the end and design proposed by 
its creator and ruler, the last outcome and fruit- 
age of the whole sentient creation. The legiti- 
mate exertion of the mind's active nature in di- 
rection and in degree is, in the natural and de- 
signed tendency of things, to be followed by good ; 
as the wrong exercise is to be followed by evil. 
Human experience recognizes this law. There is 



70 THE SENSIBILITY. 

pleasure in every legitimate exercise of the mind, 
in imagining, in thinking, in purposing. The 
pleasure is enhanced by the intensity of the 
exertion. So pain follows the wrong use of one's 
powers. 

But as all human action is established in sym- 
pathetic relationship to surrounding things, the 
object of the action and the condition in which it 
takes place affect the pleasure or the pain. The 
object, if itself illegitimate, or if engaged with in 
illegitimate conditions, naturally brings pain. 
The energy, so far as free and unimpeded and 
flowing out toward objects nearest in sympathy, 
brings pleasure. Obstructed, impeded energy, di- 
rected upon objects unsuitable or repugnant, or 
exerted in untoward conditions, occasions pain. 
Difficulties are painful in so far as they impede or 
hinder ; they bring in pleasure when surmounted 
by reason of the greater energy that has been 
called out by them. 

§ 39. This general exposition of the nature and 
use of pleasure and pain in the human soul indi- 
cates at once the relation to these affections of 
what are generally esteemed to be their external 
objects or sources. This relation is shown to be 
mediate ; the so-called objects of pleasure waken 
or produce it only in and through the soul — only 
through the acts or affections of the soul as deter- 
mined by those objects. Pleasure is not pro- 
duced directly by the object. The mind is ad- 
dressed by its object and some impression pro- 



PLEASURE AND PAIN. 71 

duced or some action called forth ; and the pleas- 
ure waits immediately on that affection or act. 
A landscape, we say, in looser language, pleases ; 
it effects this by engaging the contemplative 
faculty, the action of which is " ended out " by the 
pleasure. A blow pains us ; the pain is not only 
in the soul but comes immediately from the 
bruised or lacerated organization of soul and body, 
as it is felt by the soul itself. If the nerves of 
the smitten member are paralyzed, or if the mys- 
terious bond between soul and nervous center be 
severed, no pain certainly can be felt. Nor can 
there be any sense of it until the soul itself feels 
the blow ; it is from this that the pain immedi- 
ately comes. The universal law is : — the mind 
itself, acting or affected as a whole or in some func- 
tional act or affection, is the immediate source of all 
pleasure and pain. 

This mediateness of relation between pleasure 
and pain on the one, hand, and their objects or 
sources on the other, particularly so far as they 
are external to the mind, is a principle of funda- 
mental importance both to ethical theories and 
to practical life. Pleasure is not to be sought 
directly, but only in the perfection of character 
and condition. It can be produced only by put- 
ting the mind or soul in fitting relations to the 
outer objects so that that mode of general ac- 
tivity, or those functional acts or affections on 
which pleasure waits, shall be determined to it. 



72 THE SENSIBILITY. 

§ 40. Pleasure and pain are in this exposition 
shown to bear the peculiar character of being in 
themselves finalities ; they are the resulting ends 
of mental activity and affection. They exist in- 
deed in the world-system ; they are in the stream 
of change. Other experiences start from them 
and out of them. But in themselves they look 
to nothing further; nothing in their nature tends 
to further results. They are the creator's ap- 
pointed ends of action , not means. 

§41. Pleasure and pain, further, are simple 
feelings. Each particular pleasure, thus, as 
springing from some particular mental act or 
affection, is not complex, but simple and in- 
tegral. Pleasure is often accompanied with 
pleasure, it is true, and also with pain, but only 
as they spring from different acts or affections. 
We speak, sometimes, of mingled pleasure and 
pain ; the pleasure comes from one source in 
the mental experience, the pain from another. 
We feel a certain pleasure in tragic scenes or re- 
ports ; the pleasure comes from the contempla- 
tion, the pain from some sense of bereave- 
ment or some sympathy with distress. The dra- 
matic act gratifies in exhibiting heart-rending 
sorrows ; pleasure and pain meet, but come from 
different sources in the mind of the beholder. 
We listen eagerly to sad news ; the pleasure from 
the action of aroused curiosity joins, while it 
overbears, the pain from the wounded sympa- 
thies. 



PLEASURE AND PAIN, 73 

§ 42. Pleasure and pain furnish presumptive 
but not absolute and decisive criteria of the 
legitimate exercise of the mental functions. If 
a work of the imagination pleases, it is a sign 
that the production has been effected in accord- 
ance with the principles and laws regulating that 
function. So if the conclusion that has been 
reached in a course of investigation and of rea- 
soning gives satisfaction, it is supposed to be 
right and true. A glad conscience signifies a 
right act. Generally, a procedure or a habit 
which draws in continual satisfaction and pleasure 
reconciles the mind to it as right. A protracted 
disquiet and distress in body or mind suggest 
something wrong. But it would be very rash 
and unsafe to rely on those tests at once in respect 
to every act or affection which they may attend, as 
conclusive. While on the one hand it is true 
that all pleasure and pain come by a natural law 
as the results, respectively, of legitimate or irregu- 
lar action in favoring or untoward conditions, the 
application of the truth as a test of conduct or 
of condition requires often cautious considera- 
tion. Perfect peace and blessedness can result 
only from perfect character and perfect condi- 
tion. Right action, naturally followed by pleas- 
ure, may take place in adverse circumstances that 
occasion difficulty and suffering; and inviting 
conditions sometimes seduce to actions that tor- 
ment the conscience. Further, human conduct 
may enlist divers functions and suffer divers af- 



74 THE SENSIBILITY. 

fections at the same time ; pleasure may wait on 
one and pain on another ; there may be, as al- 
ready intimated, mingled pleasure and pain. 
Feats of heroism filling the soul with exulting 
joy have been performed in mental distress or 
bodily disease. In fact, with man in his present 
state, self-sacrifice is the price of the higher 
pleasure ; and some kind of satisfaction is the 
tempter in every instance of wrong. Similarly, 
the healing remedy for one distress often gener- 
ates or aggravates another. With all these diffi- 
culties in the practical use of the experiences of 
pleasure and pain as tests of character and con- 
duct, as well as of condition, these affections are 
in themselves, when allowed and applied in due 
degree and relation, legitimate incentives and 
guides to human conduct; they are, partially and 
subordinately, trustworthy tests of what is legiti- 
mate or otherwise. Pleasure always imports 
something legitimate ; pain always suggests 
something wrong somewhere, here or there, now 
or formerly, in ourselves or others, in act or in 
condition. 

§ 43. Pleasure and pain suffer divers modifica- 
tions. In their own nature they vary in degree 
or intensity and in breadth ; and in their relation 
to their objects or sources, they are variously 
characterized. 

They vary thus, in degree, from states that 
border on indifference to wildest excesses of 
exultation or of grief. They vary also in breadth 



, PLEASURE AND PAIN. 75 

as they engage the whole soul's capacity at the 
time or only partially, as when only a part of its 
functions are enlisted. 

Pleasure and pain are modified also in reference 
to the mental state from which they spring. They 
are characterized thus in reference to the general 
condition of the mind pervading its whole being, 
as in calm content, or rippling cheerfulness, or 
jubilant joy ; or in some settled disgust, or restless 
ennuis or desperate agony. 

They are characterized, further, according to 
the functional energy or capacity from which 
they arise. The pleasures or the pains that come 
from the acting soul differ specifically from those 
that come from passive affection. The particular 
energies breed their own delights or dislikes ; and 
the particular affections end out with each its 
peculiar joy or sorrow. 

They vary also mediately and indirectly with 
the objects that engage these energies or affec- 
tions of the mind. We speak thus of the pleas- 
ures of food, of landscape, of society, and the 
like. They bring pleasure to us through their 
interaction with our minds and by thus deter- 
mining them to acts or affections which nature 
ends out with pleasure to us. 

More directly and immediately do the condi- 
tions of our acting or our feeling, in other words, 
the particular shapings of the relation between 
outer objects and our minds, as favoring the 
interaction or otherwise, characterize the pleasure 



76 THE SENSIBILITY. 

or pain that attends upon the interaction or its 
results in our minds. The favoring environment 
makes action pleasant ; untoward conditions 
make it hard or repulsive and more or less pain- 
ful. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE SENSATIONS. 

§ 44. THE SENSATIONS are feelings produced in 
the mind by physical or material objects that ad- 
dress it tJirougli the bodily organism. They are 
the passive side of the interaction that takes 
place between the human mind and the material 
world. They must be recognized as having their 
seat solely in the mind itself. The impressing 
force is indeed present with the impressed feeling ; 
but the force is on one side, the feeling on the 
other. Seal and wax meet in the sealing ; but 
the impression as received, is not at all in the 
seal, but only in the wax. " It is surely impossi- 
ble," says Kant, " that we should feel outside us 
and not inside us." It has been contended by 
some physiologists that the seat of sensation is 
in the nerve. If the nervous organism were to 
be accepted as being the mind itself or all that 
there is of mind, then this doctrine might also be 
accepted. But the generally received doctrine 
recognizes the distinction of mind and matter. 
This doctrine involves the truth that in the inter- 
action of mind and matter the resulting feeling — ■ 
the sensation — pertains only to the mind. With 



;3 THE SENSIBILITY. 

this view the gener.il testimony of consciousness 
accords. Men never attribute the sense of pain 
to a ganglion of nerves. They are conscious that 
the sense is in themselves ; it is they themselves 
that feel. Nerves cannot be conscious of the 
affections which they receive ; the nervous organ- 
ism cannot be conscious of them. Men with well 
nigh entire unanimity refer all proper conscious- 
ness to the soul itself. That which consciously 
feels is conceived of as back of the particular 
nerve impressed ; back of the nervous organism ; 
back of the brain. Mind and matter are of a 
distinct and opposite character ; they exist as oppo- 
sites in their correlation with each other ; as such 
they interact ; and the effect of the interaction, 
when the impression comes from the matter, is, 
on the mind's side, sensation. If I press my 
finger forcibly on a piece of yielding wax, both 
myself and the wax are affected by the interac- 
tion, but differently. I have a sensation which is 
wholly in me ; the wax has an indentation which is 
wholly in it. 

The philosophy of this interaction between 
matter and mind cannot as yet be expounded in 
minutest detail with the confidence that science 
might seek. Theories, hypotheses, are proposed ; 
but how such opposite natures as those of mind 
and matter can interact at all and in what par- 
ticular way they do interact, involve problems 
that are still unsettled. If there was but one 
nature concerned, much at least of the mystery 



THE SENSATIONS. 79 

would be dispelled. The fact of interaction implies 
the exertion of force or energy ; all action implies 
this. And action and force imply a being that 
acts and exerts the force. Sensation accordingly 
is the result of an interaction between two beings, 
two entities, two realities, which must be either 
two different kinds of force or be charged with 
force. When in the interaction the impressing 
force is from the matter-side, the result on the 
mind's-side is sensation. The meeting ground in 
the interaction is the nervous organism of the 
human body. This is the sole medium of sensa- 
tion with man. 

§ 46. The nervous organism in man consists 
of an upright trunk which is surmounted by a 
large oval mass known as the brain or cerebrum 
lying in the skull or cranium, and branches out 
into manifold lateral ramifications. Next 
below the cerebrum are other smaller masses of 
nerve-matter, the cerebellum being the largest of 
these ; and lower still is what is called the spinal 
column passing down through the vertebrce. 
From this upright column forty-three pairs of 
nerves — twelve cranial and thirty-one spinal — 
branch out in cords that here and there swell 
into ganglions differing in size and figure, consti- 
tuting nervous centers with their respective func- 
tions. The matter constituting this nervous sys- 
tem exists in the twofold form of cells and fibers. 
The cellular matter is of gray color and its 
special function seems to be that of a reservoir 



80 THE SENSIBILITY. 

where nervous force is gathered and thence sent 
forth. The fibrous matter is white, and its func- 
tion is that of a vehicle of force. For its twofold 
use of transmitting force outward and inward, 
there are provided two different sets of nervous 
fibers — one called the efferent or motor nerves, 
the other, the afferent or sensory nerves. They 
are always conjoined constituting so many pairs 
of nerve-cords. The outer coating of the brain 
or cerebrum — its cortex — it should be added 
here, is of the cellular substance ; the interior of 
the brain is a fibrous mass. 

§ 47. A fundamental characteristic of the nerv- 
ous organism is that it is throughout functional. 
It is everywhere characterized as a medium, a 
seat and channel of activity — of a force or energy 
which acts to work out a purpose and to effect an 
end. This we should presume beforehand ; 
for every living nature involves ends, purposes, 
uses, means ; and observation uniformly corrobo- 
rates this presumption. Everywhere and more 
and more as investigation proceeds, the distinct- 
ive functional uses of the divers parts of the nerv- 
ous organism reveal themselves. The twofold 
substance — cellular and fibrous — as already stated, 
imports a diversity of function. So the positions 
of the parts, their connections, their forms, in fig- 
ure and size, indicate distinctive functions re- 
spectively. 

These functional uses of the nervous organism 



THE SENSATIONS. 81 

are threefold, as they respect the nervous system 
itself, the body generally, or the mind. 

§ 48. First, we notice a functional activity in 
the nervous system as directed upon itself. It is 
the proper function of the cell thus to hold force 
for the fiber ; of the fiber to receive from one 
cellular mass to transmit to another. It is the 
office of the efferent or motor nerve to carry the 
nervous energy from within outward — from the 
brain, from the several ganglions — to determine 
motion in respect to the outer world. It is the 
office of the afferent or sensory nerve to bring in 
force or impression from without. Each kind has 
thus its own special direction of nerve-current. 
If an electric shock be given to either, the move- 
ment will be always and exclusively outward in 
the case of a motor nerve, and inward in the case 
of a sensory nerve. Interaction between differ- 
ent kinds of nerve-elements is denominated reflex 
action, being the action of one element directly 
upon another, without intervention of the mind. 
This reflex action is effected not only in the brain 
but also in the spinal cord and in other ganglions. 
This seems to be the special function of these 
ganglions, to serve as nerve-centers or places of 
meeting of different nerve elements, as also to 
serve as connections between the several parts of 
the system. 

§ 49. Secondly, the several parts of the nerv- 
ous structure have distinctive uses determined 
to them from their position, connections, and 
6 



cS 2 THE SENSIBILITY. 

forms in reference to the body. The afferent or 
sensory nerves proceed from the different parts 
of the body with a mission to report its condition 
to points where required. They report thus to 
their proper nerve-centers ; the motor nerves re- 
ceive the message; and in their turn perform 
their office by moving the muscles as the uses of 
the body, or it may be of the sovereign mind, 
may require. Recent physiological science, with 
wonderful industry and sagacity, has investigated 
the respective functional uses of the different por- 
tions of the nervous organism. It now gen- 
erally regards thus the pair of ganglia called the 
corpora striata lying below the cerebrum as the 
nerve-centers by which the motions of the body 
to a certain extent are adjusted to each other 
and to the states of the muscular system generally. 
The cerebellum has its co-ordinating functions ; and 
so other ganglions. In walking, for illustration, 
the will issues the general order; the nervous 
system receives the order and carries it out in all 
its detailed complications. As one foot is lifted, 
the equilibrium of the body is maintained by an 
instantaneous co-ordination of the other muscles 
concerned. In like manner, the acrobat in every 
new attitude that he takes makes it necessary for 
maintaining his equilibrium that an indefinite 
number of muscles should act in concert ; the re- 
flex action of the nerves effects the needful mus- 
cular adjustment. The act of speaking, in the 
same way, necessitates the co-ordination of a large 



THE SENS A TIONS. 83 

number of muscular movements. All this the 
nervous system takes in charge and accomplishes 
the work through what is called its reflex action 
without the necessary interference of the brain, or 
of the mind. As the nervous organism is contin- 
uous and connected throughout, these co-ordinat- 
ing movements react through the whole body — as 
may be requisite for its best condition and most 
effective working. These recent physiological dis- 
coveries dispose of some questions that once se- 
verely tasked the ingenuity of psychologists in 
seeking to explain how the mind could conscious- 
ly and intentionally reach every nerve and muscle 
concerned in complicated movements of the body. 
The mind does not reach them at all ; it only 
gives out the general order ; the nerves execute 
the order, attending to all the minute details 
that are involved. It is true that the higher 
nerve-centers may sometimes intervene ; the 
mind itself may intervene, arresting or modifying; 
the nerves obey all orders, carrying out to the 
uttermost limit of their power the last or high- 
est order received. The extent to which this ad- 
justing or co-ordinating ministry, in addition to 
the more proper special function of a nerve-pair 
or nerve-center, would be well nigh incredible 
but for the abundance of accordant testimony of 
the most authoritative character. As a single fact 
in exemplification, the statement may be cited, 
that if an acid be applied to the side of a frog 
from which the head has been removed, the frog 



84 THE SENSIBILITY. 

will brush it off with the foot of the same side 
and if that foot be cut off, it will use the other 
foot. 

More than this : in case a given part of the 
nerve system be destroyed or impaired in its ac- 
tion, another portion may be deputed to perform 
its function, so that the body shall suffer no harm. 
This delegation of ministry is of course subject to 
limitation of place and connection ; for it seems 
to be settled that the special function of a nerve- 
element depends on its position, its connections 
and relations, rather than on its peculiarity of 
structure. 

There is to be observed in relation to this reflex 
action of the nerves, and the observation is to be 
extended to the reciprocal action of the mind 
and the nervous system, that a kind of law of 
habit prevails in it generally. Repetition facili- 
tates and expedites nervous action ; regularity and 
uniformity promote it. Responses between the 
different nerve-elements, and also between them 
and the mind, become by such uniformity and rep- 
etition quicker and easier. What was slow and 
difficult and awkward at first, becomes in time 
quick and easy, and graceful or free. The law 
is of remarkable extent and force. It reaches to 
the attainments of agility and strength of bodily 
limb — of foot and hand, in all feats of muscular 
exertion ; of finger and tongue and vocal organ, 
as in musical skill ; of touch and sight and all the 
special senses ; as also vigor in the involuntary 



THE SENSATIONS. 85 

movements of the body, as in respiration, diges- 
tion, and other functions of this class ; to the in- 
terpretations likewise by the mind of the mes- 
sages which the nerve-vehicle brings to it and its 
action back on them, both collectively and as spe- 
cial elements ; — everywhere the law prevails. 
The whole composite nature of man is subject to 
this law of habit ; the mind and the body alike in 
themselves and in their interaction. The recog- 
nition of it explains manifold phenomena other- 
wise obscure and mysterious. A nervous move- 
ment, it is to be observed, may start from any 
point in the nervous expansion that can be 
reached by an impressing force, as well as at the 
proper terminal points. A diseased state of the 
body thus, as in case of fevers, blood-poisoning, 
and the like, external agents introduced by any 
means into the interior of the body, as chemical 
irritants, and, it may be added, the imagination 
itself, may excite a sensory nerve and so occasion 
sensation in the mind itself that cannot be dis- 
tinguished from surface irritations. Or, analogous 
effects may result in like action of a motor nerve : 
bodily movements taking place as if ordered by 
the mind itself. Such affections of the nerves 
originating within, are naturally interpreted as if 
starting from the terminal points or sources. Pain 
thus in a limb that has suffered amputation some- 
times seems to come from the foot or hand that 
has been, removed, when a nerve that originally 
started from that member is irritated anywhere 



S6 THE SENSIBILITY. 

along its course. Sounds, sights, really oc- 
casioned by these interior excitants of the nerves, 
seem as real and are as naturally referred to outer 
objects as when they come to the eye or ear from 
these objects. We are enabled in the light of 
this fact to account for apparitions and mysteri- 
ous sounds, other strange sensations, as well as 
for singular movements of the body, which other- 
wise would seem inexplicable or supernatural. 

§ 50. Thirdly, the paramount functional min- 
istry of the nervous organism is exerted in rela- 
tion to the mind. To this high office all its 
other functional ministries are auxiliary and sub- 
ordinate. And the one comprehensive ministry 
here seems to be as a medium of interaction be- 
tween the mind and beings exterior to it, includ- 
ing the body itself. In order to such interaction 
some field common to it and them seems neces- 
sary ; and such a field is furnished in the nerve- 
system. This office it unquestionably fulfills. 

The physical entity closest to the human 
mind is the body. Mind and body participate in 
a common life ; they are united so vitally that 
the condition and action of the one immediately 
affect the other. Health and vigor in the one 
are reflected in the other, as are also disease and 
weakness. Every form of mental activity reaches 
out through the remotest parts of the body ; and 
the afferent nerves bring back to the mind in sen- 
sation their respective messages concerning the 
bodily condition from every part. Feeling, 



THE SENSATIONS. 87 

thought, volition alike put the nerves in motion. 
A sense of an unworthy act sends the blood into 
the cheeks, or agitates the entire bodily frame- 
work ; a bright thought illumines the counte- 
nance, and a perplexing thought wrinkles the 
brow ; while the will exerts its sway over body 
and soul alike. So, on the other hand, even the 
prick of a pin in the finger or the tickling of the 
sole of the foot may startle or agitate the mind 
itself. It is through the nervous organism that 
this interaction between mind and body is main- 
tained. And all other physical natures reach the 
mind only through the body and through its 
nerve-system. 

Influenced apparently by the localization of the 
several functional ministries of the different por- 
tions of the nervous organism, particularly in the 
case of the special senses, physiologists have held 
that analogy leads to the conjecture that the 
brain is the instrument or organ of the higher 
mental activities. But the analogy utterly fails 
here. The nervous organism has for its comprehen- 
sive function to serve as medium between mind 
and external bodies, the functional ministries to 
the body and to other parts of the nerve-system 
being only subordinate and auxiliary. No such 
medium is required for those activities of the 
mind which are limited by their nature within its 
own sphere. Where there is no use to be sub- 
served, it is absurd to suppose a special function. 
Then there is no support for the conjecture that 



88 THE SENSIBILITY. 

the higher spiritual activities are localized in the 
brain, in any ascertained fact. Investigation has 
been pushed with the most industrious zeal, and 
most scientific method and exactness; but no 
limitation of any particular part of the brain to 
any particular form of that higher spiritual activity 
which lies wholly in the spiritual realm, has ever 
been observed. The localizations in the nerve- 
system of the different forms of the mind's inter- 
action with outer bodies, have been ascertained 
by recent investigations, to a truly marvelous ex- 
tent. But not one fact of observation, has passed 
the boundary of this interaction. The purely 
spiritual activities of will, thought, imagination, 
have never been found to engage specially any 
portion of the brain. The arguments from the 
affections of the memory by diseases or lesions of 
the brain, all fail in the light of a true theory of 
the memory which denies to it the character of a 
special faculty of the mind. The general vital 
sympathy of the mind and body as parts united in 
the same organic whole, sufficiently accounts for 
other phenomena, such as the lessened circulation 
of the blood in the brain during sleep, without 
supposing an organic functional relation, except, 
as stated, in cases of interaction between the mind 
and outer bodies. 

The hypothesis of a special localization in the 
brain of these higher mental activities which are 
carried on within a purely spiritual realm, is ac- 
cordingly to be rejected : 



. THE SENS A TIONS. 89 

First, because no fact of observation sustains 

it; 

Secondly, because no use in the mind's activity- 
requires it ; 

Thirdly, because the function of the nerve-sys- 
tem is exhausted in its office as a medium of in- 
teraction between body and mind ; 

Fourthly, because the special function of the 
brain is sufficiently engaged in the co-ordination 
of the entire aggregate of nervous activities and 
conditions throughout the body. For this func- 
tion its location and its relations, as well as its 
own internal structure, specially adapt it ; and 
in the exercise of this function its full capacity 
may well seem to be enlisted, so that it shall have 
nothing to spare for other service. 

§ 51. The sensations or affections of the mind 
from physical forces in the animal frame itself, or 
from external bodies acting through the nervous 
organism, are conveniently distributed into four 
classes : 

First, the sensations of pleasure and pain from 
bodily motions and states ; 

Secondly, the sensations from the exterior con- 
ditions of the body as a living whole — those of 
the general vital sense ; 

Thirdly, the sensations from affections by ex- 
ternal agencies of general organic structures — 
those of the general organic sense ; and 

Fourthly, the sensations from affections of the 
special sense-organs — those of special sense. 



90 THE SENSIBILITY. 

§ 52. The body is a source of pleasure and pain 
to the mind in its movements and states as truly as 
the acts and affections of the mind itself, for the 
body is an organic part of the man in the present 
life. § 38. A bodily movement or a bodily state, 
so far as normal or legitimate of itself is attended 
by pleasure, as its natural result or consequence ; 
and equally, so far as irregular, and in contradic- 
tion to the law of its being, such movement or 
state brings in this sense of pain. Bodily health 
and vigor, unobstructed vital processes, as of res- 
piration and nutrition, free and unimpeded exer- 
tion of muscles, are sources of pleasurable sensa- 
tions, more or less general, more or less pro- 
nounced ; the opposites of these conditions are 
followed under the appointments of nature by 
painful sensations. The mind may turn itself 
away from noticing them, may absorb itself with 
other operations or affections ; but nature is ever 
present with her inexorable law and forces in the 
appointed consequence, heeded or unheeded. 

§ 53. The sensations of the general vital sense 
are those produced by the outer condition or en- 
vironment of the body. They include the sensa- 
tions of heat and cold, of atmospheric exhilaration 
or depression, of light and darkness, of stillness 
and noise, and the like. 

§ 54. The sensations of the general organic 
sense proceed from the affections by exterior 
agencies of one or another of the organic struct- 
ures in the body, as the muscular, the cuticular, 



THE SENSATIONS. 91 

the general nervous structure. The sensations 
of pressure and resistance, titillations or lesions 
of the skin, of heat and cold from immediate con- 
tact with external bodies, are exemplifications of 
this class of sensations. 

§ 55. The sensations of special sense proceed 
from certain nerve-structures specially appropri- 
ated each to its own kind of impression. These 
special structures are five in number, and are 
familiarly known as those of Touch, Taste, Smell, 
Hearing, and Sight. 

I. The sensations of Touch proceed from the 
extremities of the nerves terminating in the skin 
particularly at the tips of the ringers, also on the 
surface of the tongue and the lips. They arise 
only from actual contact of the external body 
which acts mechanically upon the tactual nerves. 
They are closely associated with those of the gen- 
eral organic sense on the one side and with those 
of taste on the other ; and freely mingle or unite 
with them. 

II. The sensations of Taste proceed from af- 
fections of certain nerve-structures at the sur- 
face of the tongue and soft palate with the ad- 
jacent parts. The gustatory nerves are acted 
upon by liquids or gaseous substances in imme- 
diate contact and only through chemical proper- 
ties. 

III. The sensations of Smell proceed from 
nerves in the inner and upper part of the nose. 
This sense is the weakest and the most variable 



92 THE SENSIBILITY. 

of the senses. In the case of some persons it 
is entirely lacking. The olfactory nerves are 
affected chemically by odoriferous particles in 
the air or, perhaps, as some suppose, by an 
odoriferous ether after the analogy of vision as 
produced by a luminiferous ether. 

IV. The sensations of Hearing proceed from 
affections of the auditory nerves seated in the 
ear. The impressions are made by vibrations of 
air on the outward ear which are transmitted by 
a complicated apparatus to the auditory nerves. 
The action is purely mechanical ; and the vibra- 
tions, which by exciting the auditory nerves pro- 
duce the sensations of sound, may originate not 
only in atmospheric waves, but also from inter- 
nal causes, as from electrical excitement, from 
disease, from narcotics, and even from the 
imagination acting upon the motor nerves and 
so causing forcible circulation of the blood. We 
hear thus at times ringing sounds or even musi- 
cal tones occasioned by internal affections 
alone. It is probable that some supposed super- 
natural sounds resembling cries or vocal ad- 
dresses are to be accounted for by this reference 
to an internal origin. 

V. The sensations of Sight proceed from im- 
pressions on the optical nerve-structure situated 
in the eye, by the undulations of light. This is 
at least the normal source or occasion of Sight. 
But impressions on the nerves of Sight may orig- 
inate from within, as from electricity, from dis- 



THE SENS A TIONS. 93 

ease, from chemical irritants, from the imagina- 
tion, and also from external pressure or violence. 
The action on the nerves is mechanical. The 
sensation will of course be variously modified by 
the modifications which the nature of light or the 
character of its undulating movements may suf- 
fer. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE EMOTIONS. 



§ 56. The Emotions are feelings awakened in 
tJie mind by immaterial or spiritual objects. 

These objects or sources of emotion may reach 
the mind by direct and immediate address or 
indirectly and mediately. The acts and affec- 
tions of the mind itself are immediate objects of 
emotion. The mind becomes object thus to it- 
self, and when standing in this relation it is des- 
ignated as subject -object. Its own feelings, 
thoughts, and purposes awaken feelings, vari- 
ously distinguished in themselves. Such feelings 
are emotions, being characterized by this relation 
to the mind's own acts or affections which they 
immediately respect. 

But other spiritual activities besides those of 
the proper self address the mind, although per- 
haps in the present condition of man as invested 
with a material body only through the bodily 
organism, and so through the nervous structure. 
It may, however, be reasonably supposed that the 
universal energy working throughout the universe, 
regarded as the revealed activity of the infinite 
spirit, may immediately interact with the human 



THE EMOTIONS. 95 

spirit ; and so emotions be awakened without the 
intervention of any material medium. But how- 
ever reaching the human soul the address of a 
spiritual activity to it may awaken feelings of 
the class distinguished as emotions. The sen- 
sation by which the object that awakens the 
emotion may be conveyed to the mind may be 
consciously noticed or pass wholly unnoticed. 
We often in reading take no note of the sensation 
of sight produced by the printed characters that 
bring to us stirring intelligence. The surprise, 
the exultation, or the grief alone engages our 
minds ; we overlook the vehicle of the physical 
sense. But the distinction between the sensa- 
tion and the emotion is broad and obvious ; the 
one has its immediate object and source in the 
sphere of the body ; the other, in the realm of 
spirit. Emotions are accordingly to be recog- 
nized as the passive side of the mind's interaction 
with other spiritual activities. 

§ 57. We have recognized a threefold division 
of spiritual activities or, as they are called, ideas; 
all forms of such activities that are conceivable by 
us being comprehended under the three grand 
ideas of the true, the beautiful, and the good. 
§ 27. We have thus the fundamental and exhaust- 
ive distribution of the emotions as related to 
their object or source: — I, Those awakened by 
what is true ; 2, Those awakened by what is 
beautiful ; and 3, Those awakened by what is 
good. 



96 THE SENSIBILITY. 

As pleasure waits on all normal acts and affec- 
tions of the mind, § 38, we have what may be 
called emotional pleasure and its opposite, emo- 
tional pain, as we have proper sensational pleas- 
ure and pain. 

In a similar analogy, as we designated the 
capacity of sensation the bodily sense, so we have 
in reference to the respective classes of ideas 
awakening emotions what may be designated the 
intellectual sense, meaning by the term the soul's 
capacity of emotion from what is true ; the 
cesthetic sense, or the soul's capacity of emotion 
from what is beautiful or perfect in form ; and 
the moral sense, or the capacity of emotion from 
what is good in the object addressing it. There 
arise thus the designations of the three classes of 
emotions, as the Intellectual, the ^Esthetic, and 
the Moral. 

These classes suffer each divers modifications. 

§ 58. Intellectual emotions are awakened by 
objects as true, addressing the soul. The appre- 
hension of truth or the soul's reception of objects 
as true or revealing truth is natural to man. He 
is fitted for truth ; and the truth acts upon him. 
He feels it. The true received or contemplated, 
that is, the reception of the true by the mind, 
awakens a peculiar feeling or emotion. So far 
as simply true, irrespectively of the contents as 
good or evil in itself, the true is pleasing. We 
desire to hear news even when it is sad. The 
false is on the contrary naturally displeasing. 



THE EMOTIONS. 97 

The imperfectly true, knowledge imperfect in any 
way, naturally disquiets us ; we seek the per- 
fectly true, perfect knowledge. That an object is 
real is a fact that of itself may excite a certain 
emotion more or less vivid, connected or uncon- 
nected with other characteristics or relations 
which it bears. The apprehension of these charac- 
teristics or relations awakens feeling more or less 
intense. So a stated principle or law, a proposi- 
tion of any kind, discerned as true, awakens emo- 
tion. These emotions are designated as intel- 
lectual, in reference to the character of the object 
of the emotion as the true, that is, as the expres- 
sion of an intelligence, rather than in reference to 
the subject or the intelligence that receives the 
object. 

Emotions of this class are variously modified. 
They vary in intensity — from barely wakeful intel- 
ligence to the elation of soul attending discovery 
of momentous truth. Truths that more immedi- 
ately concern us touch us most deeply. Discov- 
eries by our own minds have a special interest to 
us. Novelty intensifies the emotion. Surprise 
is a modification of the intellectual sense. 
Quickness of intellect in revealing the true 
heightens emotion. Here lies the peculiar en- 
chantment of Wit. 

§ 59. ^Esthetic emotions are awakened by ob- 
jects regarded in respect to their form — as perfect 
or beautiful, or otherwise. The perfectly beauti- 
ful is the perfect in form ; and form denotes 

7 



98 THE SENSIBILITY. 

simply that in an object which fits it to be in 
interaction with other realities. §31. 

Emotions of this class are variously modified 
in respect to intensity and quality. They vary 
with the varying character and relations of the 
mind addressed and also with the varying nature 
and relations of the object. The more important 
distinctions in the aesthetic emotions are founded 
on the constituents of beauty in the object. 
These will come appropriately under consideration 
in subsequent chapters. But two varieties of 
these emotions may be mentioned here. The 
three constituents essential in all beauty are the 
idea revealed, the matter in which this idea is re- 
vealed, and the actual revelation of the idea in 
the matter — summarily designated as idea, matter, 
form. As the one or the other of these constit- 
uents is more prominent to the contemplating 
mind, the aesthetic emotion awakened is corre- 
spondingly modified. Such modifications form a 
distinct class of aesthetic emotions. A second 
class of aesthetic modifications and the class most 
demanding notice here is founded on the relations 
of these elements to one another in the constitu- 
tion of a beautiful object. There is a threefold 
gradation in these internal relations of the object : 
First, the idea maybe in exact equipoise with the 
matter in which it is revealed. In this case we 
have the emotion of proper beauty. The charac- 
teristic of this emotion is that of tranquillity, 
quietness, the constituents of beauty being in 



THE EMOTIONS. 99 

harmony. Secondly, the idea may transcend the 
matter or preponderate over it. The constituents 
of the beauty are now in disproportion, inharmo- 
nious ; the contemplating mind is lifted from its 
balance, as it were, by the surpassing power and 
greatness of the idea. We here have the emotion 
of sublimity. The characteristic of this emotion 
is that of agitation, unrest. The surging ocean is 
sublime ; the placid lake is beautiful. Thirdly, 
the matter may preponderate over the idea, giving 
us what we call the pretty and the comic. The 
constituents here are in disproportion and the 
effect of the contemplation is not the rest and 
quietness of proper beauty. Neither is it the 
violent agitation of spirit that characterizes the 
sublime. It is the gentle ripple of soul. In the 
pretty, the idea is in defect while the contempla- 
tion is pleasantly entertained and gratified ap- 
proximating the experience of proper beauty. In 
the comic, the unreason is in greater predomi- 
nance, approaching the character of the sublime, 
and the effect of the contemplation may be con- 
vulsive laughter. 

§ 60. Moral emotions are awakened by the good 
or its opposite in the object. They accordingly 
respect the end or aim of the activity that 
awakens the emotion. The moral emotions do 
not necessarily involve any voluntariness or act 
of will, and therefore do not of themselves indi- 
cate what is known as moral character. The 
good and the bad alike are susceptible of the 



ioo THE SENSIBILITY. 

emotions which arise from the contemplation of 
right conduct or a virtuous act ; just as the sage 
and the dunce may alike experience intellectual 
emotions and the artist and the boor alike feel in 
their respective ways and degrees the effects of 
beauty. The emotion may, however, sometimes 
be joined with the action of the free-will and so 
the complex activity take on a properly moral 
character. But the emotion may be experienced 
without any conjoined action of the free-will. In 
other words, moral emotions are so denominated, 
not because they are in themselves morally right 
or wrong, but because they are awakened by 
what is right or wrong. This is a distinction of 
grave importance in ethical discussions. 

The moral emotions suffer divers modifications. 
They vary with the character and condition of 
the contemplating mind. The virtuous feel more 
intensely than the vicious what is noble and 
excellent in act and character. Their hatred of 
the evil is likewise deeper and stronger. The 
sympathies of the two are dissimilar, as well as 
their relationships generally to virtue and to vice. 
Their emotions are correspondingly modified. 
Moral emotions vary with the character and rela- 
tive prominence of the three constituents entering 
into every moral action and state ; — the loving 
intention in the doer or moral subject ; the 
good effect in the object of the action ; and the 
performance of the act itself or the carrying of 
the loving intent into the good to be experienced 



THE EMOTIONS. 101 

by the object. The emotion varies as it is en- 
gaged more with the loving heart, or with the 
good achieved, or with the righteousness and un- 
swerving rectitude of the act, involving it may be 
more or less of heroic fortitude, struggle, and 
persistence. Moral emotions freely mingle with 
intellectual and aesthetic emotions, as parts of 
the same organic and emotional nature. As 
native endowments of the mind they do not nec- 
essarily take on a character of merit or demerit, 
of desert or blameworthiness, and accordingly, as 
before observed, are not of themselves tests of 
proper moral character. Poets corrupt in life 
have sung deeds of heroic virtue in enrapturing 
verse. The experience of a moral emotion, by the 
very constitution of the soul, gives a peculiar 
pleasure, which the contemplation of the morally 
perfect of itself awakens. Moral displeasure as 
naturally in the moral condition of the human 
soul attends on the contemplation of the evil in 
act and life. It remains true that no act or con- 
dition among men is absolutely simple ; it is ever 
complex both in itself and in its relations. It is 
possible, therefore, to abstract any one ingredient 
or any one relation from the rest ; and so the 
emotions awakened by the same act or state may 
vary greatly in intensity and in kind in the ex- 
periences of different minds. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE AFFECTIONS. 

§61. The Affections are feelings complicated 
with a certain satisfaction or dissatisfaction in 
respect to their objects. 

The classes of feelings hitherto described are 
purely passive affections of the mind. The first 
class, pleasure and pain, simply attend on the 
mind's own actions or states and it is only through 
those actions or states that they can even suggest 
any exterior objects. The sensations and emo- 
tions are the impressions received by the mind 
from objects interacting with it. In these classes 
the mind is mere passive subject. In the affec- 
tions, the active nature of the soul is engaged ; a 
positive reaction appears directed toward the 
object. It is the expression of its organic nature 
putting it into sympathy with other members of 
the same organic whole — the expression of the 
principle of kind — kindliness — as the natural reac- 
tion of the mind when addressed by them. The 
affections express thus the content or discontent, 
the satisfaction or dissatisfaction which it must 
experience more or less in all such addresses. It 



THE AFFECTIONS. 103 

is by this element that they modify or color the 
purely passive feeling produced by the object. 

§ 62. The fundamental distinction of the affec- 
tions is indicated in this account of their nature 
and genesis. It is twofold, into love and hate. 
Love is the expression of content, satisfaction, 
kindly sympathy in the reaction of the mind 
toward the objects that address it. Hate is the 
corresponding expression of discontent, dissatis- 
faction, antipathy in this reaction. 

§ 63. Love and hate are properly emotions, 
inasmuch as they are awakened not by physical, 
but by spiritual objects. They exist in the realm 
of spirit alone. Although often interchanged, 
they differ mainly in this particular feature from 
likes and dislikes which are more indefinite in re- 
gard to their objects and have a less purely 
spiritual or at least a lower import. 

They appear in each department of emotional 
experience: — intellectual, aesthetic, moral. § 57. 

In themselves they cannot be characterized as 
morally right or wrong. They become so only as 
they come under the control of the free-will. 
The moral affections, like the moral emotions, 
are denominated not from the subject experienc- 
ing them, much less from the subject as acting 
freely and voluntarily in them, but rather from 
the object of the affection as being an end and 
so a good. 

§ 64. The affections, further, appear as single 
transient experiences or as habits. Habitual 



104 THE SENSIBILITY. 

dispositions thus are recognized in language 
under the names of good-nature, complaisance, 
friendship, patriotism, piety, etc., or of ill-nature 
uncharitablcness, and the like, being variously 
modified in respect to degree and object. 

§ 65. One variety of the affections deserves a 
special notice — the resentments. They are re- 
sponsive affections — acting back on other feel- 
ings as the objects impressing the mind. To 
this class belong the affections of gratitude, as re- 
sponsive to kindness ; forgiveness and its op- 
posite, inexorablcncss, responsive to sense of 
wrong ; self-complacency and remorse, responsive 
to consciousness of right or wrong in one's self. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE DESIRES. 

§ 66. The DESIRES are feelings complicated 
with the drift of mind as an active nature toward 
sonic good. § 24. They are feelings awakened by 
some form of good in their objects which en- 
gage the telic properties of the mind. They 
are thus telic or end-seeking feelings. They add 
to the elements of a proper affection this ele- 
ment of a drift or set of mind toward the ob- 
ject in order to secure and appropriate the good 
there may be, or may be supposed to be, in it. 

This telic drift or set is characteristic of all 
life. The plant tends toward — seeks — the moist 
and the rich in the soil around it ; seeks to send 
upward its branches and downward its roots ; 
seeks to grow, to mature and perfect itself ; to 
reach the end proper to its being. The animal, 
in like manner, seeks the growth and perfection 
proper to it, and in order to this seeks the condi- 
tions favorable to this end. The whole constitu- 
tion of the human soul is thus telic ; every act- 
ive element in it pressing to attain the condi- 
tion and character proper to it. The desires are 
the respective forms of this telic bent to meet 



106 THE SENSIBILITY. 

the wants of its nature. There are not only de- 
sires which are native to the mind, instinctive, 
and normal, there are also those which arise 
out of its ever-changing character and conditions. 
There are desires which are factitious, which are 
acquired, springing out of new relations or new 
developments of character, or the result of habit 
and association ; abnormal desires, moreover, 
arising out of morbid conditions of the soul or 
body ; and those which are irregular — whether 
in kind or degree. 

The desires lie close to the free voluntary ac- 
tivities of the soul. They easily and naturally 
pass into actual volitions. In their widest compre- 
hension they may be said ever to precede acts 
of will, since such acts of will ever respect some 
object in character or condition as an end or 
motive, and this end must be a good to which 
the soul and active nature tend, and which thus 
becomes an object of desire. But desires exist 
which do not enlist the free action of the will. 
In their own proper nature they are spontanei- 
ties ; they are not morally right or wrong as be- 
ing praiseworthy or blameworthy ; they are 
moral in the higher sense only when the objects 
which they respect lie in the more strictly moral 
realm — in the realm of moral freedom. The 
desires can be morally wrong only as they arc 
allowed and cherished toward forbidden objects 
or in forbidden degrees, only as they are in 



THE DESIRES. 107 

some way or degree directed or controlled by 
the free-will. 

§ 6'/. The desires distribute themselves at 
once into the two great classes distinguished 
from each other as bents toward their objects, or 
away from them. There are thus the desires 
proper and the aversions. 

§ 68. Both classes — desires proper and aver- 
sions — include subdivisions corresponding with 
the distinctly recognized tendencies in the activity 
of the mind. Each of these constitutional tenden- 
cies has its respective object. The subdivisions 
of the desires may accordingly be denominated 
either from the tendency or from its object. 

The first and most fundamental of the desires 
of the human soul is self-love — the desire for the 
maintenance and perfection of its own being in 
character and condition. This is an instinctive 
principle of the soul, proper to all life. It is, 
subject, of course, to the limitations pertaining to 
man as a finite being, not only a most worthy 
principle of action, but also one whose legitimate 
promptings are ever to be recognized and to be 
obeyed. It appears not only as a general prin- 
ciple controlling the whole life generally, prompt- 
ing ever to the highest, most perfect, most en- 
during life in the most favoring condition, but 
also manifesting itself in modified forms in each 
separate tendency or bent of the soul's activity, 
giving rise to so many specific varieties of desire. 
They may be embraced in the two generic classes 



ioS THE SENSIBILITY. 

of appetites and rational desires, as they respect 
the physical or the rational nature of man. 

§ 69. As self-love, which is in itself an instinct- 
ive and worthy principle of human life, both 
generally and in its specific forms, may be per- 
verted or ill-regulated in degree, it becomes un- 
worthy and is known as selfishness. The two 
forms of desire are to be sharply distinguished. 
Selfishness is ever perverted or ill-regulated self- 
love. 

§ 70. The APPETITES are desires seeking the 
maintenance and perfection of the bodily life in 
character and condition. They embrace the two 
classes of the personal and the social instincts, 
such as the desires for food and drink — hunger 
and thirst ; for muscular exertion, for rest and 
sleep ; and the manifold propensities and appe- 
tencies which seek as their end the best condition 
of the individual life, as well as those which re- 
spect the continuance and perfection of the out- 
ward condition of the race. They are in them- 
selves legitimate and worthy. They rise as the 
wants of the outward life require. They may be 
perverted and ill-regulated ; they thus become cor- 
rupting, debasing, and destructive, defeating the 
very end for which they were kindly intended 
and wisely fitted. 

§71. The RATIONAL DESIRES, which seek 
immediately the maintenance and perfection of 
the soul itself in character and condition, divide 
themselves at once into the two classes of per- 



THE DESIRES. 109 

sonal and social. Each of these classes suffers 
divers modifications in reference to the particu- 
lar form of tendency recognized in the mind. 
These specific modifications may be denominated 
indifferently from the tendency or from its object 
or end. We recognize here the two classes of 
personal and social desires. 

§ 72. First and most fundamental of the ra- 
tional desires of the proper personal class, is what 
may be denominated the desire of power. The 
essential nature of the human soul we have found 
to be activity. The perfection of its active life 
is thus the most comprehensive and most funda- 
mental desire of the soul ; and this is what is 
meant by power, the term being taken in 
its largest sense. The desire of power in this 
large sense, as the desire for largest measure of 
capability and best condition for exertion — the 
principle of ambition — in the legitimate sphere 
and form of human action, is not only legitimate 
in itself and worthy, but ever to be cherished 
and fostered in rightful way and degree. It may 
be perverted and ill-regulated, like all other in- 
stincts of human nature ; and as it is the most 
fundamental instinct, so it may become the most 
dangerous of human passions. 

The desire of power is modified in manifold 
ways, and embraces manifold subdivisions. The 
desire, as personal, extends to all the functions of 
the soul. It includes the desire of freedom — the 
largest measure of power in the free-will as the 
highest and most distinctive characteristic of 



i ro THE SENSIBILITY. 

man, within the limitations incident to man's 
finite nature. The desire of intellectual culture, 

of increase in intellectual force and acquisition, 
is another modification of this generic desire. 
A third modification is the culture of the function 
of form, in its active and in its passive character — 
the culture of sympathetic affection, of aesthetic 
taste and skill, of all departments of the sensi- 
bility and the imagination. Still further may be 
enumerated here the general desire of perfection 
as a rational spirit in the well-adjusted and 
symmetrical development of the entire nature as 
an organic whole, having divers members all to 
be co-ordinated and brought into sympathetic 
.relationship of ministry. 

§ 73. The desire of power brings in the desire 
for the best opportunity and means for exercising 
power. This personal desire respecting condition 
includes divers subordinate desires. Such are 
the desires for wealth, which when abused and 
becoming inordinate, is perverted to avarice 
when riches are sought as ends and not as means, 
or covctousness, when sought in excess; the desire 
for rank or station, as affording opportunity for 
the exercise of power; the desire of fame, also, as 
opening avenues or affording facilities for power 
to achieve its ends. These desires often more or 
less involve social elements ; as power is relative, 
and is greater or less as measured in relation 
to other persons or to institutions or to circum- 
stances. Emulation is a leading form of these 
relative desires ; the desire to excel others in 



THE DESIRES. in 

power, in some form or relation, as in intrinsic 
efficiency or ability; or in actual attainment bring- 
ing in the increase of power from self-confidence 
and relative depression of others ; or, still further, 
in superior command of means or conditions. 
Human activity is appointed to manifest itself in 
a large degree in social conditions, and so inevit- 
ably often becomes competitive. Emulation is 
competitive desire ; as such, it is legitimate, and 
becomes wrong only as it is abused. 

§ 74. The more purely social desires respect as 
objects the persons constituting the social rela- 
tionships and the conditions of acting determined 
by these relationships. Here belong the generic 
desire of society, modified in manifold ways in 
respect to object, as the desire of companionship, 
of family, of civil and religious communion, of 
accidental associations with others. More sub- 
ordinate social desires are those of esteem, af- 
fection, approbation, and the like. 

§ 75. The desires are often complicated more 
or less with expectation of attainment. They 
become then hopes — a most important class of 
human affections. The opposite desires of this 
class are fears — the expectations of failure to at- 
tain the object desired. Hopes and fears vary 
with the manifold diversity of human desires or 
tendencies. They vary with their respective ob- 
jects and also in degree. Rightly directed 
and controlled, they are legitimate and worthy ; 
only as misdirected or inordinate, do they be- 
come blameworthy and hurtful. 



CHAPTER VII. 



THE SENTIMENTS. 



§ j6. The SENTIMENTS are feelings complicated 
with intelligence or zuill. 

As functions of the same organism the sensi- 
bility must ever be conjoined with its co-ordinate 
functions. The mind, in fact, never entirely re- 
presses either one ; while one or another may 
more or less predominate and so give character 
to a particular mental act or state. In the 
strongest passion there is ever in exercise some- 
thing of the intelligent nature, something of the 
free-will. Otherwise the mind parted from one 
of its essential functions would cease to be a true 
rational organism. The degrees in which these 
associated functions may take part in particular 
experiences conjointly with the affection of the 
sensibility vary indefinitely. Sometimes they 
may be too indistinct to be within our power to 
discern them ; and at other times they may rise 
to equal prominence with the feeling or even 
transcend it. In this latter case the mental ex- 
perience passes under a new denomination ; it 
is then no longer a state of the sensibility, but a 
cognitive or a purposive act of the mind, only 



THE SENTIMENTS. 113 

colored by more or less of feeling. It is so with 
the character of the whole mind. One man is 
characteristically a man of feeling ; another is a 
man of a cool judgment ; a third is a man of re- 
solve and determination. With other persons, 
the three functions may be in equipoise and form 
a symmetrical nature. 

As these functional expressions vary thus by 
indistinguishable gradations, one state shading 
itself into another by imperceptible transition, it 
is only those general and vague distinctions 
which language recognizes that can be noted in 
classification. By a sentiment language denotes 
an affection of the mind more or less modified 
in character by the intelligence or the will — or it 
may be by both, the feeling being recognized as 
the predominating and characteristic feature. 

§ JJ. The sentiments naturally distribute them- 
selves into three general classes : — the Contempla- 
tive, the Practical, and the Rational. 

§ 78. The Contemplative sentiments are such 
as unite with the feeling a characterizing exercise 
of the intelligence. 

In this class of sentiments the cognitive ele- 
ment may be the ground or source of the feeling 
as in wonder and surprise, the former looking 
rather to the intelligence side, the latter to the 
feeling itself ; also in esteem, respect, reverence, van- 
ity and self-conceit, confidence, tmst, etc. 

The intelligence may appear also simply as 



1 1 4 THE SENSIBILITY r . 

associated with the feeling and mingling with it 
as in taste, as an intelligent sense of beauty. 

The cognitive clement may also arise from 
the feeling while the feeling maintains its pres- 
ence and predominance in the complex experi- 
ence, as sometimes in the sentiments of approba- 
tion, kind-licartcdness, etc. 

The emotions, affections, and desires, generally 
readily take in this intelligent element and so 
gain the character of sentiments. 

§ 79. The Practical sentiments are feelings 
that unite with them some determination of the 
will. The)* are also known as the moral senti- 
ments. 

As in the preceding class, the two elements 
may exist in either of the relations of source, or 
consequence, or of simple association, the same 
general sentiment sometimes originating in one 
way, sometimes in another. The elements also 
unite in ever varying proportions, as is the case 
with all the sentiments. They appear, moreover, 
either as transient affections or as permanent 
dispositions. 

§ 80. The Rational sentiments are feelings that 
unite with them both of the other functions of 
man's rational nature. 

Language recognizes sentiments that are thus 
properly rational ; but it denominates them 
vaguely and with little or no discrimination of 
the relative prominence of the constituents. The 



THE SENTIMENTS. 115 

several classes, in fact, for the most part fail to 
be discriminated in language. 

§ 81. The several classes of sentiments may be 
modified in reference to their objects and accord- 
ingly be distributed into corresponding species. 
We have thus : 

1. The personal sentiments, which respect one's 
self as their object, as modesty, humility, vanity, 
self-conceit ; 

2. The social sentiments, which respect one's 
friends, 2& friendship, courtesy ; 

3. The patriotic sentiments which respect one's 
country, as patriotism, loyalty ; and 

4. The religious sentiments, which respect God, 
as godliness, devotion. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



THE PASSIONS. 



§ 82. THE PASSIONS are simply feelings intensi- 
fied. They are distinguished from the other 
classes only in degree. Any feeling of any class 
becomes a passion by increase of intensity. 

The passions admit of no exact gradations. 
They rise from lowest to highest by impercepti- 
ble stages. They are momentary or enduring. 

They are found in all the departments of 
human feeling. They simply represent the in- 
tensest forms in each respectively. 

Men differ in respect to their susceptibility of 
passion. We characterize some as being of a 
passionate nature ; or of a passionate disposition, 
humor, or turn. The native disposition admits 
of change through culture or neglect. A truly 
great and noble soul is one that feels deeply, 
warmly, passionately. The spirit of enterprise, 
of efficiency, of achievement — the spirit of might 
— is animated by a soul that feels intensely and 
passionately. 

Passions are evoked originally by objects ad- 
dressing them. An excitable soul will burst into 
a flame of passion, as gunpowder from a spark 



THE PASSIONS. 117 

that falls upon it. A word, a hint, a remote sug- 
gestion, will kindle it into a rapture, a fury, a 
storm of passion. The imagination taking up 
the impression of an exciting object upon the soul 
feeds the original feeling and nourishes it up into 
a strong body of passion. 

The passions, though strong and sources of 
strength, are subject to control. The highest 
virtue lies in right government of them. " Better 
is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a 
city." 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE IMAGINATION. 



§ 83. The Imagination is the faculty of form. 

The imagination is accordingly the active side 
of the general function of form, the passive side 
of which we have recognized under the name of 
the sensibility or the capacity of form. By this 
term form is designated " that characteristic or at- 
tribute of the mind through which it sympathet- 
ically communicates or interacts with other beings." 
§31. It will be understood that in a proper sense 
the mind interacts with itself. It is in this re- 
flexive interaction that we have found that impor- 
tant class of feelings denominated the emotions to 
have their seat and distinguishing characteristics. 
§ 56. As abiding form to itself, moreover, the 
mind presents its continuous activity to its own 
consciousness and so kno\vs itself to be itself ever 
the same in conscious personal identity. Thus 
this function is seen to be the ground and neces- 
sary condition of memory, of habit, of mental 
growth. §§ 12-15, I02 - The wide-reaching sig- 
nificance of this function in relation to all mental 
phenomena can hardly be overestimated. With- 
out it the human mind could have no sense of 



THE IMAGINATION. 119 

exterior reality, no sense of its own being ; no 
self-consciousness, no connected knowledge, no 
art, no morality; it would be little more than an 
abiding speck, at most a mere vibrating atom on 
the surface of being. 

§ 84. A diversity of names, with little scientific 
precision in the use of them, have been applied 
to this function. From the Greek language we 
have phantasy, contracted in English use to fancy. 
From the Latin we have imagination, denoting 
the imagining power of mind, also in more re- 
stricted use, representation. The faculty has also 
been sometimes called the idealizing power, its 
products being ideals. 

§ 85. It will not be difficult to identify a proper 
act of the imagination among the phenomena of 
mind. If an object, as an orange, be presented to 
the sensibility so as to impress it, and if we sup- 
pose the impression to abide for a longer or 
shorter time, the idea of the object as thus im- 
parted must abide as an object of consciousness. 
This idea is something that can be contemplated ; 
it is a form — a form of the mind that has contin- 
ued after the impression of the orange on the 
sense, and of which the mind may be conscious. 
It is in the nomenclature of Kant a schema, a hab- 
itus or holding-on of the sense-impression But 
we have now nothing but what is purely mental ; 
the external object — the orange — has removed ; it 
has done its work in impressing the sense ; the 
effect abides only as a pure mental state. It is, 



i-o THE SENSIBILITY. 

however, a state of an active nature ; the mind is 
active in the sclicma — in holding the idea. It 
holds it up to the view of consciousness. This 
act of holding the sense-impression, this schema^ 
is an act of the imagination. The orange has be- 
come idealized by it, so that it abides in the mind 
only as an idea. 

It is, however, not a mere bodiless idea. It has 
entered into the life of the mind ; it has incorpo- 
rated itself into the mind's own forms and condi- 
tions. It is no longer the primitive idea of the 
orange, as the orange was in itself or as the Crea- 
tor formed it. It has become shaped and colored 
by the mind itself in its own peculiar natural and 
acquired characteristics. So far from being the 
same as the primitive idea of the orange as it im- 
pressed the sense, it has been subjected to 
changes not only through the action of the me- 
dium through which it reached the sense, the 
medium of light and vision, but also still more by 
the mind itself, so that different minds and even 
the same mind at different times and in different 
conditions would not hold it in the same way and 
form. The idea has become an ideal ; something 
that preserves somewhat of the original identity 
of the idea, but still preserves that somewhat 
only in certain respects like the original. It has 
a new form or body given it by the mind itself act- 
ing through its function of the imagination. 
This ideal may be embodied in other matter than 
that of the mind's own state and affection at the 



THE IMAGINATION. 121 

time, and so be made by the same idealizing 
power to take on still new forms. We have thus 
the following definitions. 

§ 86. An IDEAL is the proper product of the im- 
agination as an active function. It ever consists 
of three distinguishable elements : the idea im- 
aged; the matter or body in which it is im- 
aged ; and the action of the imagination itself 
in embodying it. The term ideal, it will have been 
seen, differs from idea by its referring directly to 
the work of the imagination in forming it. 

§ 87. Ideals are primitive or secondary. A 
PRIMITIVE IDEAL is the first product of the im- 
agination as it embodies the idea received in 
the mind's own furniture at the time of receiving 
the impression. 

A SECONDARY IDEAL is an ideal shaped in some 
new matter or body. 

§ 88. Secondary ideals embrace two species : 
1. Such as are shaped in proper sensuous matter — 
sense ideals ; and 2. Such as are shaped in proper 
spiritual or mental matter — spiritual ideas. 

The human mind, then, it may be said in re-capit- 
ulation, is a communicating or interacting nature, 
and in the exercise of this function of communi- 
cating with other beings, as also with itself, on re- 
ceiving an impression in the sensibility as the 
passive side in the interaction, at once exerts its 
active function of imagining in holding the im- 
pression. This is the first and lowest stage and 
form of this active function, simply holding, re- 



122 THE SENSIBILITY. 

taining. This is the essence and radical charac- 
teristic of memory as retentive. But the idea re- 
ceived in the impression or the sense is immedi- 
ately embodied in the mind's own life ; and then 
we have the second distinguishable stage or form 
of an act of the imagination. The idea received 
and retained in memory is invested with a new 
form ; it exists in the mind modified more or less 
from its first character, the idea has become an 
ideal. Then still farther, the imagination as an 
ever active function and in its proper work of 
communicating or interacting, proceeds to put 
forth this ideal into a new body, whether in 
modes of the physical sense, as for instance in 
voice, or in proper spiritual investitures or forms 
of mind. And now the imagination branches out 
in directions and shapes of unlimited diversity as 
determined by the numberless occasions and uses 
of ordinary life or the higher uses of science and 
art. These diverse products and modifications of 
the imagination will be separately considered in 
the following chapters. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE IMAGINATION — SENSE-IDEALS. 

§ 89. SENSE-IDE ALS are products of the imagi- 
nation shaped in se?tsuous matter. 

We have recognized a twofold structure in the 
nervous constitution : one for receiving, the other 
for putting forth ideas, whether feelings, thoughts, 
or purposes; a twofold system of nerves: one «/- 
ferent, otherwise called sensory nerves, bringing to 
the mind ; the other efferent, otherwise called 
motor nerves, carrying from the mind. § 46. 

The mode of connection between the mind and 
the material system of the brain and nerves is 
wholly wrapped in mystery ; and we are utterly 
unable to explain either how the brain carries 
ideas to the mind or how the mind conveys out- 
ward its ideas through the brain. The keenest 
anatomy cannot discern the point of this connec- 
tion. No science, indeed, can tell us whether the 
connection is at a single point or over an ex- 
tended portion of the organism. It is accordingly 
entirely inexplicable how it is that one state of 
the mind, one ideal, should be followed by a mo- 
tion of the hand, and another by that of the 
tongue or lips. All that we know is the simple 



i2 4 THE SENSIBILITY. 

fact, that we think, we imagine, we form ideals, 
and instantly the nervous organism reports the 
act and this or that nerve, this or that nervous 
center, this or that part of the brain responds. 
We know that excessive mental action, particu- 
larly excessive exertion of the imagination, by 
putting the brain, or some part or other of it, into 
movement, induces weariness, and, perhaps, dis- 
ease and ultimately death; and that injury to the 
body — to the nerves, to the brain — reacts upon 
the mind and disturbs or even diseases its action. 
This mental action, at first affecting the brain 
proper, may ultimately reach the portions of the 
nervous system not immediately connected with 
the brain, as the ganglions or nervous centers from 
which nerves go out into the respiratory, the cir- 
culatory, the digestive systems of organs. A 
mere recollection, for instance, of some tragic 
scene, of some danger encountered, of some wrong 
done, sometimes suspends the breath, quickens 
the pulse, moves a sigh or a sob, disturbs all the 
alimentary functions. We have well authenticated 
records of the influence of fear or distress in 
changing the hair to white or gray in a single 
night. 

§ 90. The affections of the sensuous organism 
by the sense-ideals vary indefinitely in kind or 
character, and also in degree. 

They vary with the kind or character of the 
ideal itself. An ideal of a visible object, as of an 
orange, affects the brain and its nervous retinue 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS- 125 

differently from an idea of a sound ; an ideal of 
a picture differently from that of an action. For 
the most part, different parts of the brain, different 
nerves, are brought into exercise in the different 
cases. 

They vary with the condition of the body and 
particularly of the nervous organism. A diseased 
body may make the imagination even of a gener- 
ally agreeable object disagreeable or offensive. 
The imagination of dainty food nauseates in sea- 
sickness. We are credibly informed that a man 
who had been wrapped when sick at sea in a 
cloak, could not wear the cloak afterward on 
land without the return of the nausea with which 
it had been associated. 

They vary in degree with the energy of the 
imaging act, and also with the susceptibility of 
the organism. A vivid imagination may quicken 
the blood, suffuse the cheek, brighten the eye, 
fill with animation the whole frame ; while a dull 
imagination, even when framing an ideal of the 
same object, may not sensibly stir a fiber of the 
body. A susceptible organism, too, moves quick 
and strong from an ideal that would scarcely stir 
a dull and gross sense. 

§ 91. That mental activity of whatever kind is 
attended by some change in the brain is a truth 
beyond question. Mind and body constitute a 
single organism and whatever affects one part or 
member affects the whole. How they interact 
with each other, science is unable to determine 



126 THE SENSIBILITY. 

with any exactness or assurance. Perhaps the 
most unobjectionable theory that can be devised 
to meet the difficulties in the case is that which 
assumes chat the body is pervaded throughout by 
an energy or force with which the soul immedi- 
ately interacts. The human will exerts itself on 
this energy or force and through it acts out on 
external nature. I will, thus, to bend my finger ; 
my volition acts upon this energy residing in the 
body, awakening it into action and directing also 
its movement ; and to this movement the finger 
responds in bending. This energy, thus pervading 
the body, with which the mind interacts and 
through which it effects results in the body itself 
and even in the external world to a certain extent, 
is of course none other than the universal force or 
energy that manifests itself in nature ; and as 
specifically excited in the bodily organism is 
known as nerve-force or neural energy. This 
theory is reconcilable with any view that may be 
taken of the nature of matter. It is also a theory 
that may conveniently be used in the generaliza- 
tion of nervous phenomena with little liability to 
error. 

§ 92. Sense-ideals, like other mental states, 
while of course ever within the sphere of con- 
sciousness, are not always noticed by us. They 
may be too weak, too faint, to impress us so that 
we become distinctly conscious of them. Our 
mental life is made up to a very large extent of 
these unconscious workings of our imaginations 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS. 127 

within our sensuous organisms. Thoughts, feel- 
ings, purposes, live on in these ideals that take on 
their proper sense-form and direct the nerve move- 
ments of our nerves of which we take no notice, 
of which, perhaps, we are unable through the finite- 
ness of our natures to take distinct notice. A 
strain of music, thus, will run, as we familiarly 
say, in our brains ; we modulate our breath in 
answer, or our vocal organs respond, or our 
fingers, our feet, our bodies, move in rhythm. 
A picture will in the same way stir sympathetic 
imaginings which will at once, all unnoticed by 
us and uncontrolled, bring tears to the eye, or 
color to the cheek, or violent contractions to the 
muscles. Many of the phenomena of dreams find 
their solutions in this influence of the sense-ideals 
on the body as also on the mind. 

These general statements of the reciprocal influ- 
ence of the mind and the bodily organism we will 
illustrate by some well attested facts. They will 
be presented under the several classes of Phan- 
toms ; cases of Exalted Sensibility ; and instances 
of Suspended Sensibility. 

§ 93. 1. Phantoms. — A phantom is a sensation, 
produced not by an external object, but by an 
impression from the mind — from the imagination 
— or from the sensuous organism. 

Here there is a real affection of the organism, 
but the cause is not from the exterior world but 
from the mind or the body itself. The impres- 
sion on the organism is reported back to the mind 



128 THE SENSIBILITY. 

just as if the impression were from without; 
and, therefore, it appears to the mind precisely 
as if an external object had made the impression. 

Sir David Brewster, in his letters on Natural 
Magic, narrates the case of a lady of high charac- 
ter and intelligence, whose vivid imagination so 
affected her nervous organism as to occasion 
frequent and very striking illusions. She heard 
unreal voices, as that of her husband calling her 
by name to come to him, repeatedly, distinctly, 
and loudly. One afternoon, on entering the 
drawing-room, she saw, as she supposed, her hus- 
band standing before the fire and looking fixedly 
at her. Supposing he was absorbed in thought, 
she sat down within two feet of the figure. After 
two or three minutes she asked him why he did 
not speak to her. The form then moved off 
toward the window at the further end of the 
room and disappeared. The appearance was in 
bright daylight, and lasted four or five minutes. 
At another time, sitting with her husband in the 
drawing-room, she called his attention to what 
she supposed to be a cat. She pointed out to 
him the place where the phantom was ; called 
the cat to her ; when, trying to touch it, she fol- 
lowed it as it seemed to move away from her. 
At another time she saw a favorite dog apparently 
moving about the room, while she was holding 
the real dog in her lap. 

A similar case, equally well authenticated, is 
that of a lady who, while seated by a table, saw 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS. 129 

the figure of a man enter the door opposite, and 
move slowly toward her, and then distinctly 
heard him say that he was come from the spirit- 
world, charged with a message to her, which he 
then communicated, solemnly enjoining it upon 
her to do what was required. The form passed 
slowly by her around the table and vanished by 
the window on the opposite side of the room. 

In these two cases, there had been disease 
which had affected the nervous sensibility. In 
each case the senses of sight and of hearing were 
both concerned. 

Such spectral illusions are, in fact, not infre- 
quent in fevers. The writer, in the approach of 
a febrile attack, at intervals when free from delir- 
ium, imagined the phials of the medicine closet in 
the room to be men and women of the most gro- 
tesque and fantastic shapes and movements. 
They seemed as real as the doorway and the 
shelves on which the phials 'stood. His nervous 
system, in some part, was affected just as such 
real objects would have affected it in order so to 
impress the mind. 

The cases already instanced were cases of 
involuntary imagination. The late President 
Hitchcock, of Amherst College, relates his expe- 
rience of similar illusions which, in part, and par- 
ticularly at first, took place without any design 
or expectation of his, but in part and subsequently 
were occasioned and induced of express purpose. 
He was able, by bandaging his eyes and thus 
9 



1 3 o THE SENSIBILITY. 

entirely excluding the light, to bring before his 
mental vision images of various kinds of objects 
and scenes as distinctly and as vividly as if reali- 
ties. Having thus covered his eyes on one occa- 
sion for the purpose of experiencing these visions, 
he reported what passed before his view succes- 
sively to one who took down the reports thus: 
" The space around me is filled with huge rocks 
moving past me in all modes, full of caverns, but 
too dark to be well seen ; they hang over me now 
and look splendidly , some of them appear to be 
serpentine. Some of these rocks seem a hundred 
feet long. Against the side of a wall I see three 
young ladies sitting and laughing ; lighted candles 
are before them, and chains, machinery, etc., 
around them. I lie in a vast cavern ; the rocks 
are rolling around me like clouds ; they are 
within a foot of my face ; some are sandstone and 
some granite. I have a glimpse into a large city ; 
but a carriage-maker's yard, full of rubbish, almost 
entirely obstructs my view." This is but a brief 
extract from his account of these phenomena 
which occurred during an attack of fever, in 
which, however, there was no tendency to mental 
derangement. 

§ 94. 2. Exalted Sensibility. The sensibil- 
ity sometimes exhibits extraordinary tenderness 
and life. This occurs most strikingly when both 
the bodily organism is unusually excitable and 
the imagination is also unusually vigorous and 
active. Well authenticated facts explain to us 



THE IMA GIN A TION— SENSE-IDEALS. 131 

much that might otherwise seem to be the effect 
of supernatural agency. 

The case of Jane C. Rider, of Springfield, Mass., 
related by her physicians, is one of many, but 
one of remarkable interest. At intervals during 
several months, in a great variety of circum- 
stances, she could, at night, or in a darkened 
room, and with her eyes closely bandaged, dis- 
tinguish by her eye all ordinary objects presented 
to her. She at one time read, with her eyes thus 
bandaged, audibly and correctly, with some hesi- 
tation, however, at the most difficult words, 
nearly a whole page from a small volume handed 
her. The distinguished physicians, who observed 
and narrated the case, correctly ascribe the result 
to " the combined effect of two causes ; first, in- 
creased sensibility of the retina, in consequence of 
which objects were rendered visible in compara- 
tive darkness; and, secondly, a high degree of 
excitement in the brain itself, enabling the mind 
to perceive even a confused image of the object. " 
We must interpret " the excitement in the brain 
enabling the mind to perceive a confused image," 
here spoken of, as not in the body, but in the 
mind itself, whose imaginative function was in a 
state of exalted vigor. 

The most frequent exemplifications of this 
state of exalted sensibility occur in cases of fever 
and of delirium tremens. The power of the 
imagination over the nerves in this last named 
disease is almost incredibly great. Robust, stout- 



132 THE SENSIBILITY. 

hearted men, even men who had seemed hardened 
and callous to every impression, reckless and fear- 
less of everything, in this disease see visions and 
hear sounds that only the pit of despair can 
know as realities, and strong frames sink down 
rapidly to death under the horrors of an excited 
and uncontrolled imagination. 

§ 94. 3. Suspended Sensibility. The more 
normal and familiar phenomena of this class occur 
in ordinary sleep. The characteristic feature of 
sleep is the partial suspension of the reciprocal 
action of the mind and the body on each other. 
This suspension, in healthy sleep at least, is 
never entire. As sleep comes on, one sense after 
another in quick succession becomes inactive. 
The order varies ; but the hearing and the touch 
are generally the last to sink into repose. Com- 
monly the nerves of sensation and the nerves of 
motion cease their functions almost simultane- 
ously. The eyelids droop, the head sinks, the 
limbs drop to some external support, w 7 hile, nearly 
at the same time, the taste, the smell, and the sight 
first, and then the hearing and the touch, sus- 
pend all communication between the soul and 
external things. All the vital functions, never- 
theless, as those of respiration, circulation, nutri- 
tion, secretion, and absorption, go on as in wake- 
fulness. The heart, however, beats slower, and 
the breath is less rapid, and in early life absorp- 
tion and nutrition are more active. The brain 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS. 



133 



collapses from the diminished flow of blood into 
it. 

Sleep is more or less profound, the suspension 
of the connection between mind and body is more 
or less complete in different persons and also in 
different conditions, internal or external, of the 
same person. 

Facts abundantly show that one sense may be 
fully awake while others are asleep. A nurse, 
watching the sick, will wake on hearing the strik- 
ing of the clock, or on hearing the slightest call 
of the patient. Erasmus relates of his friend 
Oporinus, a celebrated professor and printer of 
Basle, that after a wearisome journey with a book- 
seller, he undertook in the evening at the inn to 
read aloud a manuscript about which they had 
been conversing during the journey. The book- 
seller discovered after a time that Oporinus was 
asleep while he was reading. A like experience 
has repeatedly befallen the writer. Once, after 
an exhausting journey by night and day, he under- 
took to read to others a long document of much 
value and interest with which he had become 
familiar during his journey. He fell asleep, but 
continued reading till, after a page or two, the 
hand which held the manuscript dropped and 
awakened him. At other times he read from 
books which were new to him. The sight in these 
cases remained awake, as also the motor-nerves 
concerned in reading, while other senses were 
asleep. Sir William Hamilton relates the case 



i 3 4 THE SEXSIBILITY. 

of a postman who daily traversed, on foot, the 
route between Halle and a town some eight miles 
distant. Over a part of the route which lax- 
through a meadow, he generally slept ; but on 
coming to a narrow foot-bridge, which was to be 
reached by some broken steps, he uniformly 
awoke. Soldiers, it has been often observed, 
wearied by a long march, sleep while, their feet 
move on as when they were awake. 

§ 96. Dreaming is a familiar phenomenon of 
sleep. Ordinarily we include in the notion of 
a dream that of a connection between mind and 
body, reciprocally acting upon each other. But 
a right explanation of this interesting phenom- 
enon involves the truth of the continued activity 
of the mind even in what we call profound and 
perfect sleep. The mind, as we have seen, is es- 
sentially active. To cease its activity, for it, is 
to die, since action is its very life. The life of 
the body even ceases when all action in it ceases, 
when circulation and respiration and secretion and 
absorption cease. Certain modes of thought or 
feeling may be suspended ; but to conceive of all 
thought and feeling and willing as stopping is to 
conceive of an extinct soul. There is no evidence 
that the mind wholly suspends its action in the 
profoundest sleep. That we cannot recall the 
thoughts we may have had in sleep does not 
prove that we did not think. Let one give him- 
self to musing for a half-day, letting his mind 
rove uncontrolled in any direction and toward 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS. 135 

any object that may offer ; he will, in all prob- 
ability, be unable at the close to recall one in a 
hundred of the objects that have flitted before 
his mind. The mind is active when it loses it- 
self, as we say, in sleep — when it falls asleep ; it 
is active when it recovers itself to wakefulness ; it 
certainly is sometimes active during sleep, as 
what we can recall of our dreams evinces ; who 
can suppose it ceases action in sound, undream- 
ing sleep, more than in those wakeful hours, the 
flying thoughts of which wholly escape our recol- 
lection? We say loosely we are not conscious of 
thinking or feeling during our sleep. If we mean 
that the mind was not conscious when acting, 
this is to mistake utterly the essential attribute 
of mind which is by its very nature conscious of all 
its own action. If we mean that we are not now 
conscious that we had any feeling or thought 
while we slept, then we mean only that we are 
unable now to recollect — to bring into our present 
consciousness the fact that we thus thought or 
felt. Still further, there are curious facts which 
make this supposition, that the mind may be 
active, and therefore consciously active, even dur- 
ing the profoundest sleep, extremely probable. 
There are many well accredited facts show- 
ing that the mind not only acts in sleep in 
ways that of itself it is utterly unable to recall, but 
also sometimes acts with an energy and intens- 
ity beyond what it ever knows in wakeful hours. 
A mathematician, who had long labored in vain 



136 THE SENSIBILITY. 

to solve a mathematical problem, one morning 
found the solution on his table. He had risen in 
his sleep and worked out the solution, but of the 
operation he had no recollection, and the only 
evidence that could convince him of his dream- 
work was the paper on his table. Franklin was 
wont to find in the morning political questions 
that had tasked his wakeful hours the day before 
clearly resolved in his mind. Coleridge dreamed 
out his poem, " Kubla Khan," while asleep in his 
chair. He wrote out from recollection imme- 
diately on waking what appears of the poem in 
his works, but being interrupted lost the power 
to recall the rest, which he yet believed he had 
fully composed in his dream to the extent of 
three or four times what he had written. 

Dr. Carpenter, in his mental physiology, relates 
an occurrence which proves not only that the 
mind may be capable of more intense activity in 
sleep than in wakefulness, but also that a pro- 
tracted mental operation of the highest character 
may take place in sleep of which no adequate 
recollection survives on waking. A man was 
called to compose a discourse for public delivery 
on a set occasion. He gave himself to the effort, 
and the evening before the appointment was to 
be met, he had composed something, but lay 
down utterly disgusted with his performance. 
He fell asleep and dreamed of a novel method of 
handling his subject. When waking he rose to 
commit his new thoughts to paper, but found to 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS. 137 

his astonishment on opening his desk, that they 
were already written out, the ink being hardly dry. 
Of the greatly increased activity of mind some- 
times experienced in sleep, we have indeed mani- 
fold illustrations. The following may be added 
to the instances already given : A person, aroused 
from sleep by some water sprinkled on his face, 
dreamed of the events of an entire life before 
coming to full wakefulness. There is an ac- 
credited record of an officer awakened by the 
morning gun, who dreamed of hearing an 
alarm-call to battle, of rising, equipping himself, 
going to the field, marshaling his men, engaging 
in a long and doubtful battle and of driving the 
enemy from the field, every step as orderly and 
as complete as if all real, yet dreaming through all 
this before the reverberations of the gun had died 
away on his ear. De Quincy says of his mental 
activity in his dreams that he sometimes seemed 
to have lived seventy or a hundred years in a 
single night. 

The mind, thus, never in sleep entirely drop- 
ping its activity, is more or less in sympathetic 
connection with the body. A patient in a hospital 
in France, who had lost a portion of the scalp and 
of the skull, thereby exposing the movements of 
the brain, was observed in calm sleep to exhibit 
a motionless brain, but in a sleep disturbed by 
dreams to be in proportionate agitation. It 
would be rash to infer from the apparently 
motionless brain in calm sleep that the mind it- 



138 THE SENSIBILITY. 

self was also inactive ; but the agitation of the 
brain at times evinces the fact of the continued 
interaction of mind and body in sleep. This 
motion in the brain occasioned by the mental 
action, may take place interiorly so as not to 
show itself at all on the surface ; it may extend 
throughout the entire structure of the brain ; it 
may extend farther into the nerves that issue 
from the brain ; it may reach a part or the whole 
of the entire nervous organism. This may de- 
pend on the nature of the mental activity. 
Dreams often occasion movements of hands and 
feet ; sometimes of the organs of speech. A 
dream of fright will occasion sudden convulsive 
bodily movements, as if to avert or escape danger. 
Dreams often occasion sighs and groans and out- 
cries of alarm, or smiles and audible laughter. 
Some persons talk frequently in their sleep. 
Conversation with them can sometimes be carried 
on to some considerable length. The writer 
knew a student in college who acquired the art 
of leading his room-mate when asleep to translate 
his Greek lessons for him night after night. An 
English officer was led in his dreams by his com- 
panions, who were aware of his peculiarities, to 
go through the whole process of a duel, and was 
awakened only by the report of the pistol which 
he fired in the supposed combat. 

The bodily organism acts upon the mind dur- 
ing sleep, as does the mind upon the body, in 
modes and degrees variously modified. A bright 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS. 139 

light brought into the room where one is sleeping, 
or a noise or a touch, there is reason to believe, 
often influences the mind and shapes the dream. 
Dr. Gregory having placed a bottle of hot water 
at his feet dreamed of going to Mount Etna and 
of extreme heat. In the same way the disturb- 
ance of the vital functions, or any pain in the 
body, often occasions distressful dreams. A pos- 
ture of constraint in which the mind becomes 
conscious of inability to command the muscles, 
gives rise to incubus or nightmare. The mind, 
conscious of this inability to move for defense or 
for escape from the danger which the constrained 
posture of the body had occasioned, suffers the 
extreme anguish and horror of one in real danger 
from which he sees no Avay of extricating himself. 
He is in the mental condition of one whose limbs 
are inextricably entangled in the burning wreck 
of a railway train, and who sees the flames steadily 
and irresistibly moving upon him. 

§ 97. Besides the normal phenomena of sus- 
pended sensibility in sleep, there are the abnor- 
mal states of catalepsy and somnambulism. 

In CATALEPSY, the subject seems like one in 
quiet sleep, with regular pulse and respiration, 
but beyond the reach of all the ordinary excit- 
ants from sleep. Intense flashings of light on the 
eyes, loud noises, pungent odors, punctures of the 
skin, shakings of the body, severe blows and 
bruises, prove of no avail to restore to wakeful- 
ness. A variety of this affection is ecstasy, occa- 



HO THE SENSIBILITY. 

sioned often by religious excitement. In these 
cases the mind continues active, although the con- 
nection with the senses is more or less suspended. 
Sometimes only a part of the nerves seem to 
lose their functions, as is shown in the case of 
persons who have been supposed to have died 
under these paroxysms and have been laid out 
for burial, who yet continued conscious of all 
that passed and on recovery repeated what was 
said by the attendants. More frequently, how- 
ever, the memory fails to recall what has passed 
during the attack. Yet radical and permanent 
changes of disposition and character, as from 
dissoluteness and irreligion to soberness and 
piety, which are known to have attended these 
experiences, show that, although impossible to 
be recalled, there must have been clear, strong 
thoughts, deep feelings, decided purposes. 

§ 98. Somnambulism is a form of partially 
suspended sensibility, combined with more or 
less exalted susceptibility in some of the senses, 
and particularly with a controlling activity of 
the intellect and will, reaching to the bodily 
functions. This is indeed the special character- 
istic feature of somnambulism, distinguishing it 
from dreaming and from catalepsy ; the som- 
nambulist prominently manifests a use of the 
bodily organs for some set purpose or object. 
In dreaming, the control of will is relatively dor- 
mant ; the mind is floated along hither and 
thither without guidance of its own. In cata- 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS. 141 

lepsy the mind may exercise its reason and its 
will, forming purposes that shall be permanent 
and govern the future life, but its action does 
not go out into the bodily movements. In som- 
nambulism this last is the characteristic feature. 
The somnambulist is " a dreamer who is able to 
act his dreams." He rises from his bed and 
walks the street, or climbs to the top of the 
house, passes quickly along dangerous ways, or 
delivers an harangue, or recites poetry, or works 
out mathematical problems, or executes works of 
art. The affection proceeds from a highly ex- 
citable nervous organization, which may be stim- 
ulated either by some mental act or by some 
affection of the bodily system either in ordinary 
health or in disease, or even by artificial appli- 
ances. 

Many instances of this phenomenon are on 
record. They have been noted from the earli- 
est times ; they were described by the ancient 
Greeks. As we should suppose beforehand, they 
are diversely modified. The mental activity is 
sometimes most marvelously stimulated so as to 
transcend all ordinary experience ; sometimes it 
is only of the most usual degree ; sometimes one 
function of the sensibility is suspended while 
another is exalted to an extraordinary degree, 
or, it may be, remains only of the usual energy ; 
sometimes the experience during the somnambu- 
listic attack is remembered as in dreams ; some- 
times it is beyond recollection while in the nor- 



142 THE SENSIBILITY. 

mal condition, but it may be revived again fresh 
and vivid when the attack recurs, so that the 
subject seems to live two lives, remembering in 
the normal state only what has occurred in that 
state, and in the somnambulistic state only what 
has passed in that. 

Several cases will be cited to illustrate these 
general characteristics. The Archbishop of 
Bordeaux relates that a young ecclesiastic was 
in the habit of getting up night after night, and, 
while giving conclusive evidences of being asleep, 
going to his room, taking pen, ink, and paper, 
and composing sermons. When the Archbishop 
placed a piece of pasteboard between his eyes 
and the paper, he wrote on, not seeming to be 
incommoded in the least. 

Gassendi reports that a somnambulist used to 
rise and dress himself in his sleep, go down to 
the cellar and draw wine from a cask, seeming 
to see in the dark as well as in full daylight. 
He answered questions that were put to him. 
In the morning he recollected nothing of what 
had passed. 

Colquhoun relates that a young woman of 
twenty years of age frequently passed from a 
state of proper catalepsy into that of somnam- 
bulism. She sat up on the bed and spoke with 
an unusual liveliness and cheerfulness, and in 
continuation of what she had spoken in her pre- 
vious fit. She would then sing and laugh, spring 
out of bed, pass round the room, dexterously 



THE IMAGINATION— SENSE-IDEALS. 143 

shunning anything in her way, then return to 
her bed and sink into the cataleptic state. All 
means tried to awaken her were ineffectual, such 
as burning a taper close before her eyes, pouring 
brandy and hartshorn into her eyes and mouth, 
blowing snuff into her nostrils, pricking her with 
needles, wrenching her fingers, touching the ball 
of her eye with a feather and even with the fin- 
ger. When informed of what, she had done, she 
manifested deep mortification, but never could 
recollect anything that had occurred. 

Cloquet reported to the French Academy the 
case of a lady who, having been thrown into 
somnambulism by some artificial means, had an 
ulcerated cancer removed without manifesting 
the slightest sensibility. She was kept in the 
somnambulistic state for forty-eight hours, and 
so completely that when she awoke she had no 
idea of the operation till she was informed of it. 
She talked during the attack calmly and freely 
about the operation when it was proposed to 
her, notwithstanding she had shrunk with horror 
from it when awake, quietly prepared herself for 
it, conversed with the operator during the opera- 
tion, without any motion of limb or feature, or 
any change of respiration or of pulse evincing 
that she was sensible of pain. 

In Massachusetts, some years since, a girl of 
fourteen years of age, of a nervous temperament, 
but without any extraordinary intelligence, after 
having fallen asleep in the day time, would rise 



144 THE SENSIBILITY. 

from her chair and deliver a sermon, which she 
introduced by the usual religious services, as if to 
a large audience. These discourses, which far 
transcended in mental power her wakeful ability, 
she would deliver day after day or on alternate 
days, without repetition, however, of thought 
or language. 

Another interesting case of somnambulism is 
that of a young lady who became a competitor 
in a school in which prizes had been offered for 
the best paintings. As she returned in the morn- 
ing to her work, she repeatedly observed that 
additions beyond her own skill had been made 
to the painting. She charged her companions 
with the interference, and when they denied it 
she took precautions to prevent further interfer- 
ence with her work. Her own movements were 
now watched, and she was seen to rise in sound 
sleep, dress herself, go to her table and work on 
her painting. The prize was given to her, but 
she was loth to receive it, as she insisted thai 
the work was not her own. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE IMAGINATION — SPIRITUAL IDEALS. 

§ 99. SPIRITUAL IDEALS are prodticts of the im- 
agination shaped in the mind's own furniture. 

It is not improbable that any mental activity 
may, from its mysterious alliance with the body, 
draw in with it also some movements of the bod- 
ily organization. But it is clear that we may 
conceive of a purely mental act separated from 
all sensuous elements. Such a mental act as 
formed in the mind by the imagination is a spir- 
itual ideal. 

§ 100. These ideals are all formed out of the 
mind's own possessions — out of the stock of 
thoughts, feelings, and purposes which it has in 
itself. 

They are not made from nothing. Their vari- 
ety, richness, greatness^ depend on the growth 
and the attainments of the individual mind. 
A child's ideas are simple, narrow, meager, com- 
pared with those of a mature, cultivated mind. 

Of this stock of material out of which the im- 
agination forms its ideals it will be important to 
obtain a fuller and clearer understanding. If one 
were to be asked in regard to a journey he had 

ID 



146 THE SENSIBILITY. 

made during a preceding year, he would be able 
to answer so as to convey some idea of" it ; as, we 
will assume, in what month he set out ; how long 
he was gone ; what places he visited ; what ob- 
jects and scenes most interested him. All these 
ideas of his journey which he thus communicates 
in his answer are the products of his imagination, 
which, entering into the stock of his recollections, 
shapes its ideals out of them. These ideals thus 
formed go out, as he communicates them, 
through the sensual organism in sounds, in words, 
which the inquirer on receiving them garners into 
his stock of ideas or mental possessions. This 
complex act of taking out of the stores of the 
mind's ideas such as would meet the demands of 
the inquiry and of shaping them in ideals to be 
then expressed in words, Sir William Hamilton 
with a nice analysis has explained as involving 
the exertion of a threefold faculty, (i) the mem- 
ory proper, the retentive or conservative power 
by which the mind retains its ideas ; (2) the re- 
productive power by which the mind calls forth 
what was lying dormant in memory ; and (3) the 
represe?itative power by which the mind holds up 
before itself the ideas which it has reproduced 
from memory. Whatever may be thought of the 
propriety of recognizing these faculties — reten- 
tion, reproduction, and representation — as facul- 
ties of the intelligence, it is clear that we have 
this threefold phenomenon to recognize and ex- 
plain ; first, we have the fact that the mind re- 



THE IMAGINATION— SPIRITUAL IDEALS. 147 

tains its ideas ; secondly, that out of such retained 
ideas it frequently calls forth this or that for its 
use ; and thirdly, that it shapes such recalled 
ideas into new forms for communication to 
others or for its own study. It is obvious, more- 
over, that the retention and the reproduction into 
present consciousness of ideas are the two neces- 
sary conditions of representing or imagining. 
We shall therefore in order consider these two 
conditions of ideals — memory and reproduction — 
in separate chapters, reserving for a distinct chap- 
ter some additional explanation of the imagina- 
tion itself as an idealizing power. 

§ 101. It remains to be observed that these 
spiritual ideals are not only shaped out of the 
mind's own stock of ideas, but are also shaped in 
them. 

The recollections of a journey shape themselves 
very differently at different times. If one has 
observed the Parthenon of Athens, and should in 
after years recall and represent his idea of it re- 
tained from the impressions made upon his mind 
at the time of observing, his account of it would 
be different in some particulars, if given the first 
year after his return, from that which he would 
give the tenth. Some details would in this latter 
instance have slipped out of his ideal ; the others 
would be more or less differently arranged, and 
the several features would stand out in different 
degrees of prominence relatively to the others. 
His account, and consequently his ideal, more- 



14S THE SENSIBILITY. 

over, would vary with the design or end for which 
he recalled it. To describe the Parthenon to a 
child, he would shape his ideal in one way; to a 
cultivated artist, his description would set forth 
his ideal shaped in quite another way. But in 
every case his imagination shapes its product in 
the mental furniture of the time. It is outlined 
in existing feelings, thoughts, and intuitions. It 
is not only outlined in them and bounded out in 
and by them, it is also colored by them. His ideal 
will be at one time glowing with the feeling which 
transports him at the time of describing; at an- 
other, it will be dull and dim, as his mind at the 
time is heavy and clouded. The same idea of the 
Parthenon thus will be embodied in the varying 
experiences of the hour and assume a form corre- 
sponding to them. The character of the ideal, the 
distinctness of its outline, the perfectness, the 
completeness, and the richness of the rendering, 
will also van- with the vigor of the imagination 
at the time and with the design for which it acts. 



CHAPTER XII. 



MEMORY. 



§ 102. By MEMORY, in its stricter sense, is 
meant simply the retentive attribute of mind. 

The best view to take of memory is to regard 
it as the holding on of a feeling, a thought, or a 
purpose in the continuous life of the soul. § 13. 
Every impression made upon it abides in its ef- 
fect; every thinking act continues, never becom- 
ing extinct ; every choice and purpose likewise 
remains a part of the mind's ceaseless activity. 
We may as well suppose that matter or force can 
be annihilated as that the effect of force can die 
out utterly; and so we may as well suppose that 
the mind or a part of it may die out, as that its 
action, any movement it may experience either 
from the impressions of other forces or from its 
own prompting, may utterly cease to be. We 
easily enough accept the truth that strong feel- 
ings, momentous thoughts, decisive purposes of 
our lives, may live on forever; we cannot with 
any consistency hesitate to believe that less im- 
portant acts of our minds also live on. If a great 
thought has a life that reaches through the entire 
life of the mind, every lesser thought must have 



150 THE SENSIBILITY. 

the same perpetuity. The single drop, as well as 
the great tributary, remains in the swelling river. 
The great tributary of thought is in fact made 
up of the little drops of experience, and cannot 
be without them. 

The impossibility of recalling all the transient 
thoughts of past years, does not disprove this 
supposition of the continuance of every thought 
and feeling. This impossibility is to be attrib- 
uted to the limited power of the human mind to 
recognize the minute parts of its experience, not 
to the annihilation of those experiences. The 
originally clear stream of the Mississippi receives 
into its volume the whitish, muddy waters of the 
Missouri, then the greenish, muddy Ohio, and 
then the reddish, muddy streams of the Arkan- 
sas and Red rivers. For a little space each trib- 
utary maintains its separate integrity so far that 
it may be distinguished ; but as the augmented 
stream rolls on, the waters intermix more and 
more, till in the lower course of the river the sev- 
eral discolorations seem to our limited vision to 
be all blended into one mass of turbid color. But 
each particle, it is conceivable, can by an infinite 
mind be traced back to its source, and the whole 
volume of water in the channel is what has come 
into it from these separate sources. In this case, 
indeed, some of the original supply is wasted into 
the air by evaporation, by diversion into little 
lakes, by use for irrigation or other purposes ; but 
in the great current of the mind's activity, noth- 



MEMORY. 151 

ing can be supposed to be thus wasted. All that 
has entered the stream, the contribution of every 
minute transient experience, remains to swell and 
to characterize it. 

In the strictest truth memory in the largest 
and fullest sense is nothing else than the whole 
soul itself regarded as form. In other words, it 
is the entire mental nature with all its existing 
modifications by reason of growth and habit, be- 
ing the full and complete abiding body of all its 
exerted activities and received impressions re- 
garded as that which may be contemplated by it- 
self or may impress other minds. In the narrower 
sense, it is the abiding form of any special act or 
affection of the mind, whether thought, feeling, 
or purpose. It cannot be regarded as a special 
function, certainly, if the term be employed to de- 
note the retentive capacity of the soul ; for all 
states of the soul are retained alike, feelings and 
purposes as well as thoughts. Much less can it 
be regarded as a subordinate function of the in- 
telligence ; it is in no respect a cognitive function 
in any other sense than it is likewise a special 
function of the sensibility or of the will. We 
may be conscious indeed of existing mental states 
which are mere continued activities or affections 
that had begun to be in the past. In the same 
way we feel such states and they are the objects 
of our volitions. We grieve over a mistake or 
blunder of yesterday ; we purpose to avoid it in 
the future. Intelligence or consciousness enters, 



152 THE SENSIBILITY. 

it is true, into such feelings and purposes ; for 
the whole soul is present in every special act and 
affection. The consciousness of a mental state 
which is the result or renewal of a previous ex- 
perience is also equally attended by feeling and 
will. If we mean by a state of consciousness or 
intelligence, of feeling, or of will, simply a men- 
tal state that is characterized, either in itself or 
in our view of it, by a predominance of one or the 
other of those several functional activities, then 
it is true of each of these functions alike that 
their acts or affections are all remembered on the 
one hand, and on the other hand all these several 
functions, one as well as another, go forth alike 
toward these remembered acts or affections. It 
leads to serious mistake thus to confound mem- 
ory generally with consciousness of memory — rec- 
ollecting with consciousness of recollecting. The 
error is occasioned, perhaps, by the fact that when 
an appeal is addressed to the memory by our- 
selves or by another — as when we are asked 
whether we remember a past experience — in 
order to an answer we must recall the experi- 
ence into distinct consciousness, that is, into our 
intelligence; and thus giving the answer involves 
a predominant and characteristic exercise of the 
intelligence — of consciousness. But just so if we 
are asked whether we continue to feel grief over 
yesterday's mistake, we must, in order to an af- 
firmative answer, bring up the present grief over 
the mistake into consciousness. But the grief, 



MEMORY. 153 

because retained and therefore capable of being 
noticed in consciousness, does not become charac- 
teristically a form of the intelligence. It is a 
state of consciousness only in that broader and 
looser import of the term in which the term con- 
sciousness comprehends the entire activity of the 
soul, including feeling and purpose as well as in- 
telligence ; — in which, in other words, it compre- 
hends all that of which we may be conscious, 
all the experiences of the mind as well as the 
proper consciousness itself — the intelligent notice 
— of this. 

The great law of mind in relation to its power 
of retaining — its function of memory — may ac- 
cordingly be thus stated : — 

§ 103. Every feeling, every thought, 
every choice, abides in the mind. 

The proofs of this principle of memory may be 
summarily exhibited as follows : 

1. The presumption is that every action of the 
mind continues. It may not continue entirely 
unmodified ; its form may change ; it may exist 
as cause or in its effect ; it may be now more or 
less connected with one mental experience and 
then with another ; it may be variously colored 
or shaped thus in the progress of experience. 
But as we must believe that everything that is, 
continues, unless we have some reason for believ- 
ing that it has ceased to be, and as there is no 
such reason for supposing our mental action to 



154 THE SEXSIBILITY. 

die out utterly, we must accept the law of the 
deathlessness of memory as valid. 

2. Analogy confirms this view. Matter, we 
believe, is never annihilated ; force is never anni- 
hilated ; motion, the effect of force, is never an- 
nihilated; we conclude that, unless something 
can be shown to destroy the analogy, mind and its 
action continue. Matter changes its form ; force 
changes its direction and also its form ; one mo- 
tion passes into other motion, as the motion of 
gravity or of the mass passes into the motion of 
cohesion and repulsion, the motion of atoms ; but 
with change of form each continues. The quan- 
tity of matter in the universe, the quantity of 
force, the aggregate of the quantities of motion 
remain the same. At least created things have 
no power to destroy their own being or their own 
essential attributes. We are led thus to believe 
that mental activity once originated abides in 
some form, positive or negative, as long as the 
mind itself exists ; that every feeling, thought, 
and purpose hold on and are retained in the 
mind's being. 

3. Facts from ordinary experience strengthen 
these arguments from presumption and from 
analog}-. It frequently happens that little cir- 
cumstances, which we should have supposed 
were too trivial to be retained in memory, reap- 
pear in our thoughts, called forth by some asso- 
ciation perhaps strange to us. Objects which 
we have seen, words which we have heard from 



MEMORY. 155 

others, or had uttered ourselves, that had all 
vanished from our consciousness, somehow come 
up into our thoughts afresh. In old age little 
circumstances that occurred in childhood are re- 
called with a freshness and a vividness that seem 
surprising. Sometimes all the great experiences 
of middle life have faded out from the memory 
of the old, while the scenes of childhood are 
revived, and are lived over in recollection with 
wonderful exactness and fullness. In the same 
way, too, that which we have dreamed and 
which had so lightly impressed us that we did 
not recall it when we waked, returns, months or 
years after, it maybe, in second dreams that re- 
call even the little details of the first. Still fur- 
ther, we have the great fact that thoughts and 
feelings and dispositions are perpetually coursing 
through our minds, which could appear there 
only as the retained acts of previous life. These 
thoughts and feelings may not come up, and for 
the most part do not come up, into distinct con- 
sciousness one by one. But there is a volume 
of thought that is retained from the past, stream- 
ing along and shaping and coloring our present 
thought. We meet, for example, an old friend 
in the street after a long absence ; thoughts, feel- 
ings, scenes, objects, pleasures, sorrows, plans, 
hopes, actions, that have lain buried for years 
out of conscious thought, pour through our 
minds. In truth, every thought we have must 
be affected more or less by every thought we 



156 THE SENSIBILITY. 

have ever had, really, although it may be imper- 
ceptibly to our finite vision. The little boat 
that floats on the broad bosom of the great 
river near its mouth, is sustained in its part by 
every drop that has come into the stream from 
the most distant little spring from the other side 
of the continent. We are unable to discern any 
lifting of the water except for a few inches from 
the boat that presses down into the stream and 
so displaces the water around it. But every 
drop at the remotest bank is displaced according 
to its relations, and every drop on the bottom 
of the channel feels its part of the pressure. 

One of the most decisive proofs of this great 
law of the perpetuity of our mental experiences 
is found in the familiar fact of being turned round, 
as it is called. We enter a strange place without 
having observed a turn we have made in our 
course. We have been going on a road leading 
northward, for example, and, without noticing it, 
we have turned into one leading eastward ; this 
road will seem to us afterward as if leading 
northward : the sun seems to us to rise in the 
south. We reason against the impression 
but the first impression resists evidence and 
argument. If our intelligence is corrected, 
often our governing impulses follow the first 
impression whenever we are off our guard. 
If we are thus turned round in a strange city, 
we may move aright through one or two streets 
while we are guarding ourselves against being 



MEMORY. 157 

misled by the feeling; but as soon as we sur- 
render our movements to the control of our 
governing determinations, we turn north when 
we should go east. It is marvelous with what 
presistence such impressions in regard to the 
points of the compass abide in the mind. The 
writer has known of an instance when such an 
erroneous impression remained fresh and strong 
for many years, and, although the street was 
traversed several times a day, still remained so 
vigorous and strong as to require habitual care 
and watchfulness to prevent mistake. 

4. Facts of extraordinary experience confirm 
in our minds the conviction that what is once 
experienced by the mind is ever retained by it. 

In insanity it is often observed that thoughts 
are recalled which, both before and after the 
attack, were beyond all power of recollection. 
These retained thoughts, also, reappear with a 
marvelous freshness and completeness. The 
records of hospitals for the insane are replete 
with instances of mental activity stored with 
thoughts and feelings and volitions from past 
experience that have so outmeasured the seem- 
ing capacity of the mind in a sound state as to 
be well-nigh incredible. A gentleman in an 
insane retreat, says Dr. Rush, astonished every- 
body with his displays of oratory ; and a lady, 
he writes, sang hymns and songs of her own 
composition so perfect that he used to hang 
upon them with delight whenever he visited her, 



15S THE SENSIBILITY. 

and yet she had never shown a talent for poetry 
or music in any previous part of her life. 

In fever, also, similar facts are frequently oc- 
curring. The Countess de Laval was wont in 
sickness to talk in her sleep in a language that the 
servants could not understand. A nurse from her 
native province, Brittany, being engaged to at- 
tend her, however, recognized the strange speech 
as her native tongue. Yet when awake the 
Countess did not understand a word of Breton, 
so entirely had it seemingly passed from her rec- 
ollection. 

Coleridge narrates a similar case of an illiterate 
young woman of four or five and twenty, who in 
a nervous fever was heard to talk in Latin, Greek, 
and Hebrew. The matter excited great interest 
and on a protracted and thorough investigation 
it was ascertained that at the age of nine years 
she had been taken in charity into the house of a 
learned pastor where she remained some years 
until his death. This pastor had been accus- 
tomed to walk up and down a passage of his 
house into which the kitchen-door opened and 
to read aloud from his favorite books in these 
learned languages. Sheets full of her utterances 
were taken down from her lips ; they had no 
connection with one another, yet each sentence 
was complete and coherent with itself. It was 
discovered thus that these recitations of her 
master from languages utterly unknown to her 
had been retained so perfectly that even after the 



MEMORY. 159 

lapse of years, in the excitement of the sensibility 
in fever, she was able to render them distinctly 
and perfectly. 

The experiences of persons recovered when 
near being drowned are in evidence here. They 
frequently say that the events of their whole 
lives pass in clear, distinct, full review before 
them. A case narrated by the subject to the 
author is a sufficient exemplification. He had 
been entrusted with the keeping of a package of 
valuable papers by a relative when about taking 
a long journey. On the return of his friend, he 
was utterly unable to recall where he had placed 
the package. The most diligent and careful 
search as well as every effort of recollection 
failed to discover the desired package. Years 
after when bathing, he was seized with cramp 
and sank. He rose and sank again ; and, as he 
was just sinking the third time, a companion 
succeeded in reaching and rescuing him. During 
the momentary interval between his disappear- 
ance the third time and his being seized by his 
companion, his whole life in its minute incidents 
passed in review before his mind ; and among 
them the fact of his secreting the package and 
the place where he had concealed it. He pro- 
ceeded immediately to the spot, where he found, 
just as he had placed it, what he had so long 
sought in vain. 

A singular case of catalepsy, cited by Hamil- 
ton from a German work by Abel, is also in evi- 



i6o THE SENSIBILITY. 

dcnce that men's forgetfulness is not decisive 
proof against this perpetuity of mental experi- 
ences. In this case a young man, some six min- 
utes after falling asleep, would begin to speak 
distinctly and almost always of the same objects 
and connected events, so that he carried on from 
night to night the same history. On awakening 
he had no remembrance whatever of his dreaming 
thoughts. Thus it was that by day he was the 
poor apprentice of a merchant ; while by night he 
was a married man, the father of a family, a sen- 
ator, and in affluent circumstances. If during his 
vision any thing was said to him in regard to 
what occurred to him during the waking state, he 
would declare that it was all a dream. 

While memory proper has for its essential at- 
tribute this character of retentiveness, it must be 
borne in mind that it is the retentiveness of an 
active nature. It is not the retentiveness of a 
rock or of steel that may retain the lines which may 
have been inscribed upon them. It is not the 
retentiveness of a vessel or cell that retains what 
has been poured in or packed away in it. It is 
not the retentiveness of an animal organ that re- 
tains the disposition of fibers or of cells which it 
may in any way have received. It is the reten- 
tiveness of an enduring active being, which not 
only receives impressions according to its own 
active nature, but uses these impressions after- 
wards more or less in all its ceaseless action. 

Memory is to be conceived of as something 



MEMORY. 161 

more than a mere capability to recall past experi- 
ences. At least an empty capability of recollec- 
tion does not express the full truth. These past 
experiences live on in a true sense and are active 
parts of the present mental being. The man of 
learning, of achievement, of suffering, is more 
than a being capable of recalling his past thoughts 
and deeds and trials. These experiences have 
entered into his soul and have enlarged and 
strengthened it ; whether any one or more of 
them are distinctly in his present consciousness 
or not, he is more and different because of them ; 
his words, his steps, all he does, evinces a fullness 
of power, a mode and form of movement, a char- 
acter in short altogether different from a nature 
that had not had these experiences. The adult 
man differs from the child in something more 
than a mere capability of bringing into his con- 
sciousness certain things of the past. His con- 
sciousness is a capability, a power indeed, but a 
capability, a power replete with knowledge, with 
skill, with passion. 

§ 104. This law of retentiveness in mind as an 
active nature imposes three conditions of a good 
memory. They are founded respectively in the 
subject-matter of remembrance — in what is to be 
remembered ; in the relation of each thing re- 
membered to other things in the mind ; and in 
the character of mind itself. 

§ 105. 1. The first condition of a good memory 
is that it accept as what it is to retain, so far as 
n 



1 62 THE SENSIBILITY. 

possible, only what the mind may need or wish 
to use. 

The mind, as we have seen, is subject to im- 
pressions from without, beyond its control. It 
has consequently feelings, thoughts, and voli- 
tions, which it could' not altogether prevent. 
But it has nevertheless a power to a large extent 
both to regulate the kind of impressions to which 
it will allow itself to be open, and still more to 
shape them when received to its own uses. 
Now, nothing can be more important to all the 
great ends of memory, which is to retain forever 
for future use and influence upon the mind every 
feeling and thought and desire and purpose, than 
that just the right impressions, the right feelings, 
the right thoughts, the right volitions, should 
enter the memory. No feeling or thought or in- 
tention which we do not feel willing to have ever 
confronting us, ever shaping and coloring our 
destiny, ever present in our soul's very being, 
and working in us and on us whether we are 
conscious of it or not, whether we are willing or 
not, should, if it lie in our power to prevent it, 
ever be allowed to enter our minds. If any such 
impression comes upon us, then should it be so 
controlled and shaped as that ever afterward 
when it reappears it shall be in a welcome form, 
and shall when we are unconscious of it be 
silently influencing our whole mental action favor- 
ably. Our observations, our readings, our reflec- 
tions, our reveries even, should be such as will fill 



MEMORY. 163 

our memories with nothing but what we shall in 
every moment of our subsequent lives be glad to 
find there. The scenes, the objects, the associ- 
ates, the books, all the occasions of our feeling and 
acting should be carefully regulated with this 
view and under this momentous consideration, 
thatVhat they bring into our minds is to remain 
in us perpetually. 

Particularly does this characteristic of a good 
memory — good for the mind's uses — prescribe 
that our observations and our thoughts be accu- 
rate and true, as we would not have falsehood or 
error to mar all our coming thought. 

It prescribes, also, that our feelings and acts 
should be in the most perfect form into which 
our imaginations can shape impressions or sug- 
gestions ; that every recurring thought and im- 
agination may shed the radiance of beauty on all 
our inward experience. A feeling of pain, thus, 
that a stroke of malice has inflicted, may con- 
tinue to exist in our minds to color more or less 
their whole future, according as our imagination, 
reacting on the received impression, invests the 
pain in a form of forgiveness and of pity, or of 
bitter resentment. Thus it may be with all im- 
pressions which in themselves may be undesira- 
ble. They may be put in forms that shall never 
recur but to gladden and refresh us. 

It prescribes, moreover, that all our intentions, 
our plans, our endeavors, and all other voluntary 
acts should be just and right, so that none shall 



1 64 THE SENSIBILITY. 

in all the future of our being be present in our 
minds to disturb, to annoy, or to bring righteous 
retribution of evil of any kind upon us. 

§ 106. 2. The second condition of a o-ood mem- 
ory is that it so link in every fresh experience with 
past acts and feelings, as to make it most easily 
to be recalled, and to work most serviceably for 
all that the mind can properly desire. 

The importance of observing this principle in 
the culture of the memory will be more fully 
seen when the nature and laws of association are 
explained. This will be the topic of the next 
chapter. 

§ 107. 3. The third condition of a good mem- 
ory is that it enlist a lively energy of the whole 
mind in its interest. 

What is to be preferably remembered, what is 
to be present with us when we may happen spe- 
cially to need it, what is to influence greatly all 
our future thought and feeling, should receive 
the most of the mind's vigor and strength. 
What w r e receive listlessly, while it may in a 
sense abide with us, can influence us but little, 
can be little at our command in the time of need. 
What engages our interest deeply and vividly we 
retain best for use and service. 

§ 108. Under the great principle of memory 
that every act and feeling abides forever in the 
mind's active nature, in its degree and way shap- 
ing and coloring all its movements, wc have thus 



MEMORY. 165 

the three specific rules of memory that have been 
stated : 

1. That, so far as may be, only true thoughts, 
beautiful imaginings, good intentions and endeav- 
ors enter our memories. 

2. That all fresh acts and feelings be properly 
associated with existing thoughts and feelings ; 
and 

3. That what we wish to be most ready and 
serviceable in our memories engage at the time 
the mind's utmost interest, attention, and care. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 

§ 109. Mental Reproduction, or, as it is fa- 
miliarly named, Recollection, is formally denned 
as the re-awakening in the present consciousness of 
acts or feelings abiding in the mind front some pre- 
vious experience. 

It is a law of mind, generalized from abundant 
particular observations, that any act or affection 
once experienced may in the possibility of things 
be revived in the consciousness. The ground of 
the possibility of such re-awakening is ^ound in 
the fact of the abiding nature of mental activity 
and affection. § II. The re-awakening is but the 
calling out into distinct consciousness of what is 
still a part of the activity of the mind, abiding 
from some previous experience. 

§ no. Mental reproduction is either sponta- 
neous or voluntary. 

Spontaneous reproduction takes place as per- 
haps the more characteristic element in what is 
known under the familiar name of Reverie. It is 
a common characteristic of the mental state in 
dreaming. §96. 

In reverie the mind surrenders itself with no 



MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 167 

conscious control to its own current, so to speak, 
allowing thought and feeling to flow on according 
to their own tendency. In this state we discover, 
as we reproduce it for study into our thought, 
that one thought is followed by another, one feel- 
ing by another, and thought is followed by feeling, 
as well as feeling by thought. The interesting 
question arises, what determines this suggestion 
of one mental state by another. " Therein," says 
one, " lies the greatest mystery of all philosophy." 
This mystery psychologists have sought to ex- 
plain by indicating the general principles or laws 
of reproduction or suggestion, otherwise called 
the laws of the association of ideas. 

That there is some bond of connection, that 
there is some ground of association, psychologists 
have admitted or assumed. These thoughts and 
feelings that pass along through the mind one 
after another, they agree, do not come hap- 
hazard ; they succeed one another under some 
governing law. 

It may be remarked here that beyond all 
reasonable question the succession of thoughts 
and feelings in dreams and in insanity, is similar 
to the succession in reverie, and with some modifi- 
cations is subject to the same laws. 

From the earliest times philosophers have pre- 
sented, one after another, each his own enumera- 
tion of the laws of association. Sir William 
Hamilton has gathered up these proposed princi- 
ples and reduced them all to the following classes. 



1 68 THE SENSIBILITY. 

Thoughts are associated, he says, in the respective 
opinions of these philosophers, I, if connected in 
time ; 2, if adjoining in space ; 3, if related as 
cause and effect, as means and ends, or as whole 
and part ; 4, if similar or in contrast ; 5, if products 
of the same mental power, or of different powers 
conversant with the same object ; 6, if the objects 
of the thoughts are the sign and the signified ; 
7, if their objects are directed by the same word 
or sound. He himself thinks these principles 
may all be reduced under one law, which he calls 
the law of Redintegration, (restoration to a 
whole), and which he thus enounces: " Those 
thoughts suggest each other which had previously 
constituted parts of the same entire or total act 
of cognition." 

The law as thus enounced, it must be said, how- 
ever, is palpably insufficient to meet the demands 
of the problem. It does not embrace feelings or 
volitions ; no explanation whatever is given of 
the fact that one feeling draws in another feeling, 
and one purpose another purpose, nor of the fact 
that feelings suggest thoughts. Nor does it even 
cover the familiar fact that a perfectly new 
thought, which therefore could not have pre- 
viously constituted a part of any act of cognition, 
suggests old thoughts or new thoughts. I meet 
a stranger in the street, whom I have never seen 
or heard of before ; the sight may suggest any 
one of ten thousand different thoughts or feelings. 
Moreover, thoughts and feelings are associated 



MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 169 

with affections of the body ; a shoot of pain in a 
defective tooth may suggest any feeling or thought 
experienced months before in a dentist's chair. 

The same fatal deficiency in meeting the de- 
mands of the problem, characterizes other attempts 
to gather up into an exhaustive statement the 
manifold grounds of association or suggestion. 
It is true that one part of a past thought may 
suggest another part ; it is true also that some 
similarity in thoughts is a bond which unites them 
so that they may suggest one another ; it is true 
that connection in time or space, or as cause and 
effect, is a ground of suggestion ; and so of all the 
other proposed laws ; they are grounds, but all to- 
gether they do not make up all the grounds of sug- 
gestion. The problem to be solved, the mystery to 
be explained, is somewhat analogous to this. A 
particle of the green mud from the Ohio is found 
united in the Great River with a particle of the 
red mud from the Arkansas ; they come together 
under the operation of inflexible laws of nature ; 
can now-— this is the problem — can these laws be 
stated and be traced in their operation to their 
bringing together these two particles? The 
analogy would be more exact if we were to sup- 
pose all the particles that have ever come into 
the channel of the Great River to be brought to 
a stand against some immense perpendicular 
barrier, and the river under its own laws to be 
shifting continually the positions of the entire 
mass of particles and thus bringing the two parti- 



i 7 o THE SENSIBILITY. 

cles into ever new yet ever shifting- positions and 
relations. That the two particles meet and unite 
is undoubtedly due to some fixed law or laws of 
nature. We have the great law of gravity bear- 
ing the two down together in the same open 
channel ; we have the probability that if the two 
particles entered the same part of the current at 
the same time, they might come together. If 
they had been subject to equivalent forces of re- 
pulsion from the banks, of impulse from winds, of 
depression from floating objects, of rarefaction 
from heat, and the like, we have in these condi- 
tions other reasons for their being together. 
But so manifold are the influences at work, that 
human reason recoils from the task of tracing 
them all. 

It is so with the associations of any two 
thoughts or feelings in the mind. The one 
principle that covers the whole matter is simply 
this : they are states of the same one mind, as 
the two particles supposed are parts of the same 
rolling river ; and this mind has power, under 
favoring conditions, to call forth into conscious- 
ness, within certain limits, at least, any part of its 
collected activity of thought and feeling and 
volitions ; and therefore power within such limits 
to connect any present state of consciousness 
with such recollected thought or feeling or voli- 
tion, and so bring to the surface of its great vol- 
ume of accumulated experiences, that is, into dis- 
tinct consciousness, a new mental experience. It 



MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 171 

is not presumable that any absolutely universal 
law of association can be framed other than this, 
that all associated ideas must belong to the one 
same mind ; and that any one idea may, in the 
possibility of things, be associated with any other 
idea of the same mind ; just as two particles of 
white and red mud in the Great River must, to 
be brought together, be in the same stream, and 
any two in that stream may, in the possibility of 
things, be brought together. This is the one 
fundamental and comprehensive principle of men- 
tal association. 

This is a principle, it should be remarked, that 
respects ideas as forms of mental activity. The 
explanation of the ground and source of association 
should be sought ever in the mind itself, its 
actions and affections, not in products or results. 
Thought, as a product, has no power in itself to 
awaken another thought ; it is the mind as think- 
ing, that brings in another way of thinking. 

In co-existence with this general law there 
may be, and in fact there are, other more specific 
laws implying the existence of specific causes 
which may effect the association of ideas. As 
these more specific laws may be convenient helps 
to recollection, it may be of service to make a 
formal and collective statement of the principles 
of association. Whatever limitations of this 
power of recollection may exist, it may be re- 
marked, pertain only to the mind as finite ; not 
to the relation between any two thoughts or feel- 



i/2 THE SENSIBILITY. 

ings. The general principle is, that nothing but 
the weakness of mind as a finite nature hinders 
the association of any two mental acts or feelings 
which the mind has ever experienced. The prin- 
ciple implies both that no mental exercise ever 
becomes annihilated so that on this account it 
cannot be recalled, and also that every exercise is 
so connected with every other that the one may 
possibly suggest the other. 

§ in. Laws of Mental Association, i. 
Any part of the mind's total experience may be 
associated with any other, and so in favoring 
conditions suggest it. In briefer terms : in the 
same mind any idea may suggest any other idea. 

This is the comprehensive law. It includes 
all kinds of mental experience, feelings and voli- 
tions as well as thoughts. Any feeling may sug- 
gest any other feeling, or any thought, or any 
volition which has entered into the mind's ex- 
perience. By suggesting here, it should be borne 
in mind, is meant bringing forth from unconscious 
experience into distinct consciousness. 

§ 112. 2. Any part of the mind's experience 
may suggest any co-ordinate part ; — any idea sug- 
gests with special power a co-ordinate idea. 

A feeling may suggest a co-ordinate feeling. 
A man in a mood of excited feeling is easily 
drawn into another feeling. We pass more eas- 
ily to weeping from laughter than from an utter- 
ly unfeeling state. 

In the same way thought helps thought. It is 



MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 173 

a common practice with intellectual men to pre- 
pare themselves for clear, accurate, vigorous 
thought on any subject by putting themselves on 
the intense study of some other subject into which 
the mind can more readily enter. Lord Brougham 
trained himself for a great intellectual effort by a 
long and intense study of Demosthenes' Oration 
on the Crown. 

An active will in any one direction easily slides 
into action in any other direction. It is easier 
thus to enlist an active man in a new enterprise 
than the dull and idle. 

§ 113. 3. A generic part of mental experience 
may suggest any subordinate part ; and conversely 
the subordinate may suggest the generic or com- 
prehensive. Ideas that are respectively super- 
ordinate and subordinate to each other mutually 
suggest each other. 

A man in an angry mood easily breaks out 
in new passion toward any particular object, 
whether newly presented or re-awakened in mem- 
ory. Compassion toward a single sufferer in- 
clines to pity for all of the class, for general good 
will. 

To recall the individual of a class to our 
thought, we naturally turn to the class and from 
that seek to recall the desired object ; or con- 
versely, having the individual in our mind and de- 
siring to recall the class, we naturally endeavor to 
realize our wish by thinking of the individual. 

It is the same with the will. We form a gen- 



174 THE SENSIBILITY. 

cral purpose ; it brings on all subordinate pur- 
poses. We resolve to speak, and the determina- 
tion leads on to an indefinite number of subordi- 
nate purposes controlling our attitude, our gestic- 
ulation, our sentences, our respiration, our vocal- 
ization, our single words, our articulations. The 
single purpose reacts, too, on the general purpose 
and carries it on, keeps it alive, as well as guides 
and modifies it. Nothing better seems to revive 
a dormant resolution than to do some particular 
thing involved in it, or which may be made part 
of it. 

§ 114. 4. Parts of the same object of mental ac- 
tivity suggest co-ordinate or subordinate parts. 

This is but another and briefer form of stating 
the preceding laws ; it designates the action by 
its object while they directly respect the mental 
action itself. 

§ 115. 5. Parts of the same symbols or signs of 
objects in the same way suggest other co-ordinate 
or subordinate parts. 

If the mind has before it either part of the 
word, farewell, fare or well, that part may sug- 
gest the other ; or it may suggest any one of the 
parts of which it is composed. The philologist, 
for instance, may think of one or another of the 
sounds or the written characters which constitute 
the word. The cherubs in Raphael's Sistine 
Madonna will suggest the Madonna herself or any 
other part of the picture, or any posture, expres- 
sion, or feature in the cherubs themselves. 



MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 175 

§ 116. 6. Mental experiences of more recent 
occurrence have greater suggestive power : the 
more recent the idea, the greater is its power to 
suggest. 

This law of association, it will be observed, is 
of a different source and character from the pre- 
ceding. It is founded in the attribute of growth 
that we have found to belong to the human 
mind. Every new stage of its existence brings in 
a new stage of growth, a fresh life, a large devel- 
opment. Such at least is the general law. The 
most recent life consequently has a greater vigor 
and intensity. 

This fact of association we all familiarly recog- 
nize. We recall the occurrences of yesterday 
more readily than those of the last year ; and 
these more readily than those of ten years before. 
The law, of course, regards experiences of the 
same character otherwise, such as experiences of 
the same closeness of connection with the suggest- 
ing act or feeling ; or experiences of the same 
interest and importance. 

An apparent exception to this law is found in 
the experience of aged persons, who often recall 
the events of childhood and youth more readily 
and more vividly than those of later years. But 
this fact may be accounted for, in part at least, on 
the ground that their habitual thoughts at this 
period of life run in the channels of earlier experi- 
ences. These, therefore, from their being revived 
and lived over again, are really the freshest and 



176 THE SEXSIBILITY. 

latest in their minds. Farther than this, other 
principles of association may come in. External 
scenes and objects, individual associations, and 
numberless influences from personal attachments 
and repulsions, come in to make parts of a men- 
tal experience by which other parts are suggested. 
But more than all, it is the early shootings of any 
growth which are the most permanent and the 
most controlling. " As the twig is bent, the tree 
is inclined." These germinant activities of the 
soul take to themselves, more and larger associa- 
tions. They recall and are recalled more freely. 
" The child is father of the man." 

§117. 7. The intensity of the mental expe- 
rience is an important element in association or 
suggestion : — the more vivid the idea, the 
stronger is its suggestive power. 

Intense feeling kindles at once from the faint- 
est impression. An angry man bursts into 
stronger passion from a provocation of any kind. 
Energetic thinking fuses all the particular 
thoughts together, so that, as if inseparable, one 
cannot return into the mind without drawing in 
the others. Our resolutions carry all subordi- 
nate purposes just in proportion as they are strong 
and energetic, enlisting the whole soul. When 
such a governing purpose is earnest and decided, 
all purposes that are foreign to it, even if occasion 
should suggest them, give way at once. When, 
likewise, a specific purpose is thus earnest, all 
other specific purposes under the same general 



MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 177 

resolution, fall in more easily. Weak souls are 
ever characterized as inconsistent. 

If the demand be pushed farther for the reason 
why in any particular case this part is suggested 
rather than that, while sometimes a more subor- 
dinate law may be assigned, ultimately we are 
obliged from the finiteness of our power to fall 
back upon the first general law given, — the unity 
of the mind itself carrying in its complex activity 
all the special activities of feeling, of thought, 
and of volition, just as we are forced, in attempt- 
ing to account for the union of the two particles 
of mud, to fall back on the general fact of their 
being in the same whirling rolling stream. So 
many forces come in, of such various intensity, 
from the world without ; from the state of the 
body and its nervous organism ; from the habits, 
tastes, moods, of the individual mind itself, that 
it is beyond the power of created intelligence 
fully to account for all the associations of ideas 
that it experiences. It must be recollected that 
these forces come up as well from the vast vol- 
ume of our unconscious experience as from the 
mere surface of mental action which our distinct 
consciousness takes up. 

§ 118. The principles of mental suggestion 
have obviously a sweep far broader than those of 
the mere " association of ideas." Leaving out of 
view the determinations of thought and feeling 
by the direct action of the will and also by exter- 
nal objects, and confining our attention simply to 
12 



17S THE SENSIBILITY. 

the mere spontaneous flow of mental experience, 
embracing, however, in our view here the organic 
connection between the human mind and the 
body, we have the following general statements 
which to some extent at least may account for 
the particular direction or kind of feeling and 
thought in reverie. 

First, we have the fact that the mind's activity 
is itself automatic. § 22. Then there is the anal- 
ogous fact of automatism in the bodily energies. 
Particularly here is to be noticed the reflex action 
of the nerves or the spontaneous response of one 
part of the nervous organism to a movement of 
another part. § 48. There is no reason to doubt 
that this principle of reflex action, so familiarly 
recognized now in biological science prevails in 
purely mental life as well as in nervous phenom- 
ena. Farther, in both mind and body, each being 
a living organism , every part in each is so associated 
with every other part, that an affection of one part 
may reach any other. § 49. Still more, there is a 
correlation between soul and body, so that cer- 
tain affections of the one occasion affections in 
the other. § 50. The principle of reflex action 
shows itself here also in the combined organism. 
These correlations we recognize in part as natu- 
ral, as when, in walking, the feet move on of 
themselves, that is, without a repeated interven- 
tion of the will and if they encounter any ob- 
stacle in their way, they surmount it without any 
conscious effort. But besides these, there are in- 



MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 179 

numerable correlations that are acquired or estab- 
lished by habit, voluntarily and involuntarily, 
which have no supposable special ground in the 
essential nature of our mental and bodily consti- 
tutions, so that a certain affection of the sense 
will bring on a certain affection of the mind — 
awaken a certain feeling, or thought, or volition. 
There is in short, so to speak, an automatism in 
the correlated action of mind and body — in the 
whole man — so that, without any intervention of 
the will, any bodily state may be associated with 
any mental condition. Hamilton's law of redinte- 
gration must be greatly broadened to take in all 
this organic correlation in mind and body — in the 
whole and in the parts. We cannot account for 
the facts in mental suggestion without embracing 
this automatism in mind, in body, and in their 
union as one living organism, each member of 
which lives in every other. This principle of so- 
called reflex action, characterizing all living things 
and ever operative in them throughout their en- 
tire being, is ever to be recognized in interpreting 
mental states. 

§ 119. Voluntary reproduction is familiarly de- 
noted by the term recollection. 

We recognize the fact that reproduction is in 
some measure subject to our wills when in our 
desire to recall some past experience, to call forth 
into distinct consciousness the abiding impress of 
such past experience now lying latent in the soul, 
we endeavor to direct our thoughts or feelings 



1S0 THE SENSIBILITY. 

toward it. We do this in two different ways : 
positively, by keeping in our consciousness some 
experience associated with what we wish to re- 
call ; and negatively, by repelling thoughts and 
feelings that are more foreign to it. 

The positive endeavor to recall a past experi- 
ence will of course best be guided by association. 
It assumes some feeling, or thought, or volition 
from which it is to proceed as its necessary 
ground and starting point. With this experience 
in the consciousness, recollection properly sets 
out and then puts itself under the lead of this 
principle of association. The best rules of recol- 
lection may accordingly be thus summarily 
given : — 

§ 1 20. Rules of Recollection. I. Recall 
feeling by feeling, thought by thought, purpose 
by purpose. 

Early affection for a friend long separated from 
us may best be revived from a similar state of af- 
fection in exercise toward a friend still with us. 
In like manner a former thought is best revived 
when thinking rather than feeling or endeavoring 
is the predominant characteristic of the mind. 
Free action in the same way revives a dormant 
purpose or endeavor. Even if the mind in a 
state of excited feeling desires to recall the train 
of thought out of which the feeling rose or with 
which it was associated, for the most part success 
will be most probable if the existing feeling first 



MENTAL REPRODUCTION. 181 

recall the old feeling and then that feeling revive 
its associated thought. 

§ 121. II. Recall ideas through the relation of 
whole and part. 

If the feeling or thought or purpose to be re- 
called be generic or comprehensive, start from a 
subordinate experience ; if subordinate, start from 
a generic or comprehensive experience. 

To revive a governing disposition of filial duti- 
fulness, a present purpose in doing some particu- 
lar act of filial duty will be the most hopeful. So 
a general thought is best recalled by thinking of 
some particular fact or instance in which that 
principle is exemplified. As for example, in re- 
calling the general law of material gravitation, I 
may succeed 'best by beginning with the law as 
instanced in a falling weight and thinking of the 
number of feet of fall in the first second, the 
number in the second, the number in the third, 
and so on. 

So to recall a subordinate purpose, it is best, if 
it be practicable, to begin with a generic or gov- 
erning endeavor. To revive a neglected religious 
duty, the most hopeful method is to begin with a 
freshened endeavor to do all religious duty. To 
recall a specific thought, it is well to begin with 
the general law that comprises that thought. 

§ 122. III. Recall objects through the same re- 
lation of whole and part, as associated either with 
one another or with the mental state which they 
respect. 



1 82 THE SENSIBILITY. 

§ 123. IV. Words and other symbols are most 
suggestive of like words and symbols, or of the 
objects or mental states with which they are as- 
sociated. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE ARTISTIC, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND PRACTICAL 
IMAGINATION. 

§ 124. Ideals, as the proper products of the im- 
agination, may be distinguished into three gen- 
eral classes, corresponding to the three general 
functions of the mind: feeling, thinking, willing; 
also to the three generic objects of all mental 
activity: the beautiful, the true, and the good. 

We have thus three functions of the imagina- 
tion determined in reference to the character of 
its product or ideal — three forms of the imagina- 
tion as an active power : — 

1 . The A rtistic Imagination. 

2. The Philosophical Imagination, 

3. The Practical Imagination. 

It must be borne in mind here as everywhere, 
that these products of the imagination, these 
ideals, are so distinguished only as they are more 
prominently characterized respectively either as 
beautiful, true, or good. Every act of mind, 
every idea, has necessarily each of these attri- 
butes in some degree ; but it may have one more 
prominent than the others, which thus gives char- 
acter to the act. If an artist frames an ideal of a 



184 THE SENSIBILITY. 

virtue, as, for instance, of patriotism, or of filial 
affection, he necessarily regards more or less the 
principles of truth, of intelligence, and also those 
of right-doing. But his governing end being a 
beautiful form, his ideal is characterized as prop- 
erly artistic, not philosophical nor practical. 
The philosopher, in the same way, although his 
governing end is truth, and his labor is to attain 
or set forth what is true, still must regard the 
form which his speculations take and the effect in 
some way or other which they may work. But 
his prominent ideal being the true, it is easily 
distinguished by this characteristic ; it differs 
from a mere ideal to be marked by its beauty. 
A geometrical treatise does not properly take on 
a poetical form. The practical man, moreover, 
cannot disregard the form of his product, nor the 
essential attributes — the truth — of things ; but 
his act is characteristically distinct from the 
proper work of the artist and of the philosopher. 
Still further, the degrees in which the one or 
the other of these three great attributes of all 
mental activity, the attributes of form, truth, and 
practical effect, predominate in ideals, vary indef- 
initely. The practical philanthropist, who aims 
to do good as his chief governing aim, may put 
his act of kindness into such a frame of loveliness 
that we may hesitate which to admire most, the 
beauty or the goodness of his act. In truth the 
imagination which shaped his act may be re- 
garded as having been both artistic and practical; 



THE ARTISTIC IMAGINATION. 185 

both graceful and beneficent. It may have been 
also eminently wise, conformed in all particulars 
to the truth of things. His act will be character- 
ized as good, or beautiful, or true, according as 
one or another of these attributes is recognized 
as predominant in it. 

§ 125. The Artistic Imagination produces 
ideals characterized by their form, as beautiful or 
the opposite. 

The governing end in the artistic imagination 
is form. The work may be more or less con- 
formed to truth, may more or less promote truth ; 
it may proceed from a general benevolent inten- 
tion and may be productive of good ; but the art- 
ist in his own proper specific work, looks to the 
form of his product. His work will indeed be 
more or less perfect in form according as he more 
or less strictly conforms his work to the truth of 
things, or as he works more or less perfectly in 
the line of goodness ; yet we have no difficulty 
in recognizing the work as characteristically a 
piece of art and not a work of speculation or of 
morality. 

It is the proper province of the science of 
aesthetics to ascertain and apply the laws of the 
artistic imagination both in the production and 
in the interpretation of beauty. 

§ 126. The Philosophical Imagination pro- 
duces ideals characterized by their essence as 
true or the opposite. 

The philosophical imagination seeks truth as 



1S6 THE SENSIBILITY. 

the governing end of its activity. The artistic 
imagination produces for the form's sake, al- 
though not transgressing the laws of the true ; 
the philosophical imagination, on the other hand, 
produces for the truth's sake, although not 
transgressing the laws of the beautiful. The 
mental act has a twofold aspect. One and single 
in itself, it yet engages the imagination or the 
faculty of form and the intelligence as the faculty 
of the true. If we regard the mental activity on 
the side of the imagination, we denominate it the 
philosophical imagination ; if w 7 e regard it on the 
side of the intelligence, we call it the intellectual 
representation. 

It is the proper province of the science of logic 
to expound the law r s by which the philosophical 
imagination or the faculty of the intelligence act- 
ing in the representation of truth or knowledge, 
is to be governed. This science thus determines 
the valid forms of all thought or knowledge. 

§ 127. The Practical Imagination produces 
ideals characterized by their tendency to a result 
or effect as good or the opposite. 

The practical imagination frames ideals of char- 
acter to which the whole activity of the soul is to 
be shaped. It devises plans of active exertion 
and methods of execution. As the life of the art- 
ist is characteristically that of one who is ever 
shaping beautiful forms, idealizing for the pur- 
pose of impressing beauty, and as the life of the 
student and the philosopher is characteristically 



THE PRACTICAL IMAGINATION. 187 

a life busy with framing new and truer ideas of 
doctrine, of objects, of events, so the life of the 
practical man is characteristically the life of one 
busy in devising schemes of exertion, new pur- 
suits, new enterprises, new methods of operation. 
It is the proper province of the science of eth- 
ics, in its broadest sense as comprising not only 
the duties of religion and morality, but also the 
acts of social life, of polity, civil and domestic 
economy, and those which pertain to personal 
well-being, to bodily and mental health and 
vigor, as well as the fulfillment of man's destiny 
as an active being, — it is the province of this 
broad science to unfold the laws by which prac- 
tice in all these departments is to be regulated 
and controlled. 



THE SENSIBILITY.— II. OBJECTIVE 
VIEW. 



CHAPTER XV. 

FORM — ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 

§ 128. FORM is the proper object of the sensi- 
bility and the imagination ; it is that which 
these functions of the mind immediately respect. 
§ 31. The sensibility receives form ; the imagina- 
tion produces form. As has been before stated, 
any object of mental activity may, through the 
analytical power of the mind, be regarded at will 
either in respect to its essence, or its end, or its 
form. Thus form may be more exactly defined 
to be that attribute of an object by virtue of which 
it may impress and so make itself to be felt. In 
like manner the sensibility may be denned to be 
that attribute of mind by virtue of which the 
mind may be impressed by the object and so 
feel the object as a power impressing it. 

If an object be perfectly suited to affect favor- 
ably the sensibility, in other words, if it be per- 
fect in form, we call it beautiful. If there be in 
any respect a lack of fitness in it to impress the 



FORM— ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 189 

sensibility favorably, it is imperfect in form — it is 
imperfectly beautiful. If, instead of affecting 
the sensibility thus favorably, that is, instead of 
impressing it so that the affection should legiti- 
mately be one of pleasure, it on the contrary 
legitimately give pain in the contemplation, it is 
positively ugly. All these gradations of beauty 
are comprehended in the one general denomina- 
tion of the beautiful, or the category of form. 
Each gradation, even the ugly, is proper object 
to the sensibility. These gradations together 
make up the entire object of that function. 

These statements involve the truth that beauty, 
form, is real, in the sense that it belongs as a true 
attribute to something real. Nothing but reality 
can affect or move the soul. Even although it 
be a mere fancy, that is, although it be a mere 
fiction of the imagination the object of which is 
devoid in itself of all reality, the fiction itself — 
the fancy — as an exertion of mind, is a fact, is 
real. The one and sufficient mark and sign of 
the real, indeed, is precisely this, that it affects 
or moves the soul. 

The theory that for some time gained preva- 
lence in Great Britain, that the experience of 
beauty is a mere effect of association, being 
simply the pleasure resulting from certain trains 
of associated ideas, is founded in entire mistake 
as to the nature of the experience or, indeed, more 
radically, in erroneous views of the mental activi- 
ties and capacities generally, and is now ex- 



190 THE SENSIBILITY. 

plodcd, as is also the implied supposition which 
identifies the emotion of beauty with simple 
pleasure. All that can be held as true here is 
that pleasure as a natural accompaniment is often 
an available test or sign of beauty as it is equally 
a test of truth and of goodness. As created in 
order to experience the true, the beautiful, and 
the good, the soul finds specific ends of its being 
realized in such experiences ; and the pleasure 
native to all legitimate exercises of its activity, 
in so far as it attends upon these experiences, is a 
valid test of their legitimacy. The satisfaction, 
thus, that waits on the exercise of the intelli- 
gence in regard to a proposition, and of the will 
in regard to a moral act, is a sign that they have 
respectively attained the really true and the really 
good. The satisfaction, in like manner, that 
attends on the contemplation of the form of an 
object, is a sign that it is in truth beautiful. 
Such satisfaction is a sign or proof to a certain 
extent; while it raises a certain presumption, it 
is not of itself, however, absolutely conclusive. 

§ 129. As is apparent from the definitions that 
have been given of the different classes of feeling, 
form, when engaging the passive side of the sen- 
sibility, must be supposed to address itself ulti- 
mately to that class of susceptibilities which we 
have denominated the emotions. It is true that 
form in physical matter can only reach the soul 
through the physical or bodily senses. But if 
its effect reach no farther than the bodily sense, 



FORM— ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 191 

there can be no proper experience of beauty. 
It was indeed a theory of Burke that beauty " is 
for the greater part some quality in bodies acting 
mechanically upon the human mind by the inter- 
vention of the senses, and acts by relaxing the 
solids of the whole system." The beauty of a 
fine picture must reach the soul through the 
sense of sight ; and it may be true of it that the 
lines and colors are such as to engage agreeably 
all the bodily organs concerned in beholding, and 
so occasion pleasing sensations. But there is no 
proper experience of beauty in this physical sen- 
sation. The properly beautiful is not felt until 
the soul back of the sense-affection is reached. 
Not till then is the ideal of the artist and the 
taste and skill with which he has embodied this 
ideal in outline and color, really felt in the soul ; 
and these constitute the essence of what is beau- 
tiful in the picture. Form, or that attribute in 
the object by which this ideal and taste and skill 
are apprehended, passes through the bodily sense 
to fasten at last on the mental or spiritual nature. 
The physical affection is simply medium between 
the external object and the mind. As will be 
seen in the case of perception, the sense-affection 
itself or the impression on the nerves and its 
effect in the nerves themselves, are all on the 
bodily side. The mind itself, while at the same 
time it is affected by the bodily state or by the 
power which works through the nerve-system of 
the body, is yet the proper seat of the experience of 



192 THE SENSIBILITY. 

the beautiful or form, just as it is the seat of the 
experience of the true. The emotion of beauty, 
just as the perception or knowledge of the true, 
is in the mind alone. Form, thus, strictly speak- 
ing-, has no proper seat in the mere physical sense ; 
it works through that and so reaches the sensibil- 
ity in the character of a proper emotion which is 
determined immediately not by a material object 
but only from a properly spiritual or mental 
source. 

Still farther, it is apparent that beaut}* is not 
proper object for the affections which are feelings 
that are characterized by the fact that they go ' 
out and fasten on their objects. We may expe- 
rience to the full the beauty of a painting or of a 
landscape without love or hate in the more re- 
stricted and proper meanings of those terms. 
Beauty lies wholly within the range of the con- 
templative. Much less can form be regarded as 
proper object to the desires. A beautiful picture 
may be desired as well as loved ; it may be loved 
or desired because it is beautiful ; but the emo- 
tion which beauty awakens may be perfect when 
it is followed by no such affection or desire. So, 
still more, form may awaken an emotion which 
shall be pervaded by intelligence or will ; it 
may address feeling awakened in conjunction 
with the intelligence or choice which the object 
regarded in its essence or as an end may address. 
The emotion of beauty may exist in connection 
with an act of knowledge or of choice ; and this 



FORM— ITS NA TURK AND MODIFICA TIONS. 193 

combination characterizes the experience as a 
sentiment. But the emotion of beauty has a 
proper individual character of its own indepen- 
dently of such a combination with a thought or a 
purpose. 

§ 130. Turning now our study upon form itself 
to determine more fully its nature, we see that, 
as idea revealed, it must include three essential 
and co-ordinate constituents. There must be, first, 
the idea itself which is revealed ; secondly, the 
matter in which it is revealed ; and thirdly, the 
more essential co-efficient, the revelation itself of 
the idea in the matter. Thus in a statue, as, say 
a statue of Apollo, there must be the sculptor's 
idea of the divinity which he proposes to embody 
in the marble — there must be his ideal to be ex- 
pressed in the sculpture. Then there must be 
the matter — the marble — in which his ideal is to 
be expressed. But ideal and marble are not 
enough of themselves for the realization of the 
statue; — there must be the artistic or rendering 
power of the sculptor, characterized and guided 
by his taste and skill to put the ideal into the 
marble. So in a picture, there are, first, the 
ideal of the painter — the person, the landscape, 
the scene, — which he proposes to depict ; sec- 
ondly, the outline and color through which he 
represents this ideal ; and then, thirdly, the work 
of putting the ideal in this outline and color on 
the canvas. In the same way, in a proper spirit- 
ual ideal, as in a poem, the ideal is first shaped in 



194 THE SENSIBILITY. 

the poet's imagination ; there is then the image- 
ry and the words in which he is to incorporate 
the ideal; and finally the actual composition — the 
making of the poem, which consists in putting the 
ideal into language. 

§ 131. It is evident there can be no form with- 
out each of these constituents. Form accord- 
ingly ever embraces these three as essential ele- 
ments. These constituents, however, may exist 
in all supposable gradations of relative perfection 
and of preponderance. Form, or the beautiful, 
as object, may accordingly be divided into three 
general kinds as the one or the other of these 
constituents predominates. We have thus Ideal 
beauty, in which the ideal revealed is the govern- 
ing characteristic ; Material beauty, in which the 
beauty resides more prominently in the matter; 
and Formal beauty, in which the rendering or re- 
vealing energy is the characteristic. 

Under these general classes are embraced man- 
ifold subdivisions. We have thus under ideal 
beauty, the beauty of action and the beauty of 
repose. We have, further, the different kinds 
characterized by the relative prominence of the 
several mental functions, as intellectual beauty, 
comprising the beauty of truthfulness, of fitness, 
of unity, of harmony, of contrast, of proportion, 
of symmetry, of aesthetic number, and also gen- 
eric beauty. Under material beauty we have the 
subdivisions of inorganic, organic, sentient, and 
spiritual according to the material in which the 



FORM— ITS NA TUKE AND MOD I PICA TIONS. 195 

ideal is rendered- Under formal beauty we have 
the three kinds of, first, artistic beauty as deter- 
mined by the special character of the revealing 
energy ; secondly, free and dependent beauty 
according as the revelation of the idea is for the 
form itself or for some object ulterior to the 
mere embodiment, as for instruction or some 
utility ; and, thirdly, the kinds of beauty charac- 
terized by the relations of the revealed idea to 
the matter in which the idea is revealed, embrac- 
ing the sublime, in which the idea appears out- 
spanning the matter ; the proper beautiful, in 
which the idea revealed and the matter are in 
harmony ; and the comic and pretty, in which the 
matter preponderates over the idea. 

We have found the function of form to exist 
both as proper capacity and as faculty ; in other 
words, as sensibility and imagination. In a cor- 
responding way, form as an object may be con- 
sidered in two ways, (1), in relation to the sensi- 
bility and (2), in relation to the imagination. 
The sensibility is a recipient, and the form which 
it is to receive is to be interpreted out of the con- 
crete object which addresses it. The imagina- 
tion is a producer and its office is to produce or 
create form. These two aspects of form as ob- 
ject will be considered in distinct chapters on (1), 
the Reception or Interpretation of Form and (2), 
the Production of Form. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

FORM RECEIVED. 

§ 132. In the experience of beauty it is often 
supposed that the object ki which it is sought 
must contain beauty as a distinct intrinsic element 
or constituent. This element, it is thought, is 
accordingly to be studied out and separated by 
careful analysis from the other constituents for 
distinct contemplation, as a kernel to be uncased 
and separated from the husk or shell. In an anal- 
ogous way, pleasure is sometimes sought as if it 
were a coin or a purse that might be picked up 
in the way, in utter exclusion of the conditions on 
which alone pleasure ever waits. The error is a 
fatal one. Not so is pleasure or beauty to be 
found. The soul that would be pleased, that 
would be happy, must act or feel so that the pleas- 
ure or happiness, which by the laws of unerring na- 
ture ever comes of itself when its conditions are 
supplied to it, may have its needful source and 
occasion. The experience of beauty is the expe- 
rience of an interchange between soul and soul — 
of the imparting and receiving of idea. The re- 
ception of the idea is the experience of beauty ; 
and the satisfaction or pleasure that attends upon 



FORM RECEIVED. 197 

the emotions of beauty is but the natural con- 
sequent of the reception of the form. The pleas- 
ures of taste are the pleasures that attend upon 
the feelings awakened by the reception of idea 
just as the pleasures of the imagination are the 
pleasures that wait on the active exercises of the 
imagination. 

Form received is beauty experienced, as form 
communicated is beauty produced. The pleas- 
ure that is felt comes as natural consequent on 
legitimate feeling and legitimate imagining. To 
see or feel the beauty of any object is accord- 
ingly to see or feel that which constitutes its 
form, the three constituents of which, as we have 
seen, are idea revealed, matter in which it is re- 
vealed, and the activity or energy revealing — 
the three not separable in reality, but only in the 
analysis of thought. Only as we apprehend form 
as thus constituted — idea revealed in fitting mat- 
ter — do we experience beauty ; and in such appre- 
hension we ever experience the beauty there is 
for us in the object. In order to experience 
beauty we are not to seek for it as separable from 
some idea communicated to us, but solely in our 
properly receiving idea as communicated. 

The subjective conditions on which form or 
beauty is to be experienced are accordingly easy 
of determination. We must, in the first place, be 
in communication with the object so as to be 
impressed by it ; we must be in sympathy, at 
least in that largest sense of the term which in- 



19S the sensibility 

eludes possible communicability with it or capa- 
bility of being impressed by it. The livelier and 
broader the sympathy, the tenderer the sensibility 
and the closer and more absorbing the commu- 
nication with it, the fuller and richer will be the 
experience ; in other words, the more engag- 
ingly and perfectly will the form or beauty of the 
object enter the soul. 

But the sensibility into which form or beauty 
enters and the imagination from which beauty 
proceeds is in organic connection with an intelli- 
gent and also with a free or moral nature. Idea 
revealed and idea received come thus to be char- 
acterized alike by intelligence and free-will. The 
contemplation of beauty goes limping and weak 
when there are not both light and freedom, as the 
production of beauty stumbles or fails when these 
attributes are in defect. So in order to the ready 
and full and satisfactory reception of beauty there 
is necessary a soul that can not only feel but can 
feel freely and intelligently. Beauty, form, must 
be rational in its full import, both as received and 
as imparted. 

§ 133. Closely connected with these subjective 
conditions for the full reception of form or expe- 
rience of beauty is the condition of time, to which 
all mental experience is subject. The longer the 
impression, the deeper. This is the general law : — 
the more protracted the contemplation, the fuller 
and richer the experience. By an analysis of the 
constituents of beauty or form and an acquaint- 



FORM RECEIVED. 199 

ance with its several specific modifications in the 
relative combination of those constituents, the 
contemplation of beauty may take the form of a 
protracted study of each of these modifications 
separately, but yet a study that does not overlook 
the natural relation of each to the others. The 
study of idea itself in its possible modifications 
received from the intelligence, the sensibility, and 
the free-will ; the study of the medium in the 
diversities of its nature ; and the study of the 
revealing or rendering activity in its various 
modes of manifestation ; as also the study of the 
relationships between these constituents, and of 
the degrees of perfection in which they appear ; — 
such studies give opportunity for the fuller unfold- 
ing of the form or beauty of the object under 
contemplation. The full recognition of the char- 
acter of the revelation, bringing into view the 
general conditions and laws to which revelation 
of that specific character is subject, becomes here 
especially helpful to the full reception of form. 
There are peculiarities in the beauty of nature 
and the beauty of art. There is ground of aes- 
thetic sympathy between the soul and nature. 
The individual mind, the poet has taught us, is ex- 
quisitely fitted to the external world and the ex- 
ternal world is as exquisitely fitted to the mind. 
They sympathetically interact. Nature speaks 
to us, reveals her ideas — the ideas of the creat- 
ing spirit in her. It is a radically erroneous no- 
tion that nature has no ideas, but those which 



200 THE SENSIBILITY. 

we put into her forms. There is a mind, a soul, 
in all nature, living and acting. Nature has her 
own voice as well as her own ideas, and has more- 
over her own design. As we open our eyes and 
hearts to these revelations in sympathetic and in- 
telligent communings, protracting the impression 
she makes upon us by intelligent study of the 
manifold laws and relationships to which she is 
subject, we receive the fuller impress of her ideas, 
and experience a larger, richer beauty. 

In like manner, in the contemplation of form — 
of the beautiful — in art, we are to bring in, first, 
the subjective conditions — an active, impressible, 
sympathetic, intelligent, and an unreluctant and 
free spirit or disposition and then regard the ob- 
jective conditions which attach themselves to the 
freest communication of form. These are the 
aesthetic determinations of the object which we 
contemplate, first, in respect to the medium 
through which our sensibility is addressed — the 
medium of light and color as predominant in 
painting, of sound as in music, of imagery and 
spiritual form in poetry, with their manifold di- 
versities of modification ; then, in respect to the 
idea itself revealed whether in action or repose, 
and whether more characteristically of thought, 
of feeling, or of purpose, with their respective 
modifications. 

It is the province of proper aesthetic science to 
set forth in their details these very general condi- 
tions, both subjective and objective, of the sue- 



FORM RECEIVED. 201 

cessful contemplation of beauty whether in na- 
ture or art. The summary view presented, which 
is all that is permissible here, is sufficient to show 
that the reception of form, the experience of 
beauty, is simply the one side of a twofold activ- 
ity engaged in the interchange of idea — the im- 
parting and the receiving — mind speaking and 
mind hearing. The interpretation of beauty is 
ever but the interpretation of some mind voicing 
forth its idea in whatever way, and is most suc- 
cessful, as the interpreting spirit apprehends most 
fully and freely the movements of the addressing 
mind in their own nature, and the modes — the 
medium and ways — of its address. All aesthetic 
pleasure in contemplation hangs on this inter- 
pretation. And the beauty there is in the object 
contemplated is nothing but the form of mind 
thus communicating itself, or to speak with more 
technical exactness, idea thus shaped out and 
imparted. The human mind is made for com- 
munion ; and one great source of the pleasure, 
the joy, the happiness, which it can experience, is 
to be found in this communion. If it be legiti- 
mate and right, if it be free and full, the pleasure 
will be correspondingly perfect. Thus the pleas- 
ure that attends upon the contemplation of the 
beautiful is the natural sign and test of its purity 
and perfectness. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



FORM PRODUCED. 



§ 134. Form produced is idea communicated 
or, at least, idea expressed. It may be in address 
to another mind or to the expressing mind itself 
for its own contemplation. Form, as we have so 
often seen, is thus ever in the interchange of 
mental activity, and is that attribute of such in- 
terchanging activity by virtue of which it is rec- 
ognized as communicating. Form, related to the 
mind communicating, is the mind's mode of ac- 
tion ; related to the mind receiving, it is the 
mind's mode of affecting mind in the communi- 
cation ; related to the act of communicating, it is 
the action regarded not in its essence, not in its 
result, but as simply expressing and impressing. 
If the form be perfect ; if the form of activity in 
the expressing mind — the idea expressed — in its 
own character, be perfect ; if the form of the af- 
fection in the receiving mind be perfect ; if the 
expression itself as to medium and circumstance 
be perfect, we have perfect beauty ; if perfect in 
all these relations, we have absolutely perfect 
beauty ; if in either one, so far perfect ; if imper- 
fect in any one or all respects we have imperfect 



FORM PRODUCED. 203 

beauty ; if absolutely false in idea, false in affec- 
tion, false in expression, we have the false in form 
— the positively and absolutely ugly. 

The mode of mental activity in expressing it- 
self we have called idea. Idea is a specific mode 
of mental activity ; or is mental activity put forth 
in some specific way. We have recognized three 
generic modes of mental activity in the three 
functions of (1) the Sensibility and the Imagination, 
otherwise named the function of Form ; (2) the 
Intelligence ; and (3) the Will. We say, then, in 
a general way that all form is of one or the other 
of these three functions of mental activity. 
Every idea is an idea of feeling, of thought, or of 
purpose ; and accordingly all form respects these 
ideas in their diverse gradations of preponder- 
ance. It must not be overlooked, however, that 
without any precise discrimination of either of 
these modes of mental activity, we may suppose 
one mind to influence, to impress itself in a gen- 
eral way upon another mind. As mind is by nat- 
ure sympathetic, mere contact of ever active mind 
with other equally active minds, may be supposed 
to influence, impress itself upon this other mind — 
may communicate itself to it — without any very 
definable specific determination of the mode or 
kind of its activity. Still even in this case, there 
is a certain specification, a limitation, a form of 
mental activity to be recognized. The expressing 
mind is at least limited as to object, since all ac- 
tion implies object. There is here, therefore, a 



204 THE SEXSIBILITY. 

proper idea — form or mode of mental activity. 
But as in our study of mind we find it expedient 
to specify its several more prominent functions 
and direct our view more exclusively on these in 
their respective characteristics, with but cursory 
glances at its more general attributes which yet 
must embrace more or less these specified func- 
tions, so in the study of form we shall find it ex- 
pedient to limit our view to the more specific de- 
terminations of idea with this precautionary sug- 
gestion as to the actual limitations of our field of 
study. 

| 135. We may set forth the general truth that 
all form, all idea, is either one of feeling, of thought, 
or of purpose; as expressed, it is predominantly 
and characteristically an expression of feeling, of 
intelligence, or of will. The fundamental princi- 
ple in all production of form, that is, in all art, 
is accordingly that it ever aim to be an expres- 
sion of one or the other of these modes of men- 
tal activity. It is evident from this, that to 
speak of the expression of beauty as of an object 
is to speak absurdly ; for beauty is nothing but 
this expression of idea — that is, nothing but idea 
as expressed. 

A subordinate principle of all art-production 
follows this, — that one or the other of these three 
modes should be made predominant and be only 
modified by the others, since the rational nature 
of man, to which all art addresses itself, ever 



FORM PRODUCED. 205 

demands unity — at leabt, the unity that exists in 
subordination. And still another principle fol- 
lows, that it must be the artist's own idea which 
is to be expressed. It may be his idea of a tree 
or a man, his idea of another's thought, or wish, 
or act ; but it must be his idea, whatever it be 
that the expression respects. 

The first general principle which should gov- 
ern in all communication of idea — in all art — is 
that the communicating mind — the mind of the 
artist — have an idea to communicate, which 
should be predominantly and characteristically an 
act of imagination, of intelligence, or of will. 

A second general principle which is given in 
the very nature of an interchanging activity be- 
tween minds, is that there should be a distinct 
notion in the communicating mind of the specific 
end or design in communicating. This principle 
is imposed by the rational character of mind which 
ever seeks an end in its action. This end, further, 
in all rational communication to mind must ob- 
viously be attained either in the sensibility, the 
intelligence, or the will, as the three comprehen- 
sive modes of mental activity. These three ends 
— forthe sake of form, for the sake of the true, for 
the sake of the good — will respectively govern 
in the modes of expression, each in its own way. 
If the design of the expression be to impart truth 
— to produce in another mind the experience of 
the true — then intelligence will address intelli- 
gence. The laws of thought will control the ex- 



co6 THE SENSIBILITY. 

pression while also the conditions of thought 
— of receiving knowledge — will be recognized. 
Intelligence as addressing intelligence will pre- 
dominate, making the other associated functions 
acting under their respective laws and conditions 
— the imagination or sensibility and the free-will 
— subservient and helpful. This is the art of 
teaching. If the end be to determine the will to 
right endeavor, the expressing mind will present 
some act to engage the will, and will observe 
the laws of free activity in the presentation 
on the one hand, and the conditions of free ac- 
tion in the consenting acceptance of what is pre- 
sented on the other. The ministries of the in- 
telligence and of the feelings will be engaged as 
subervient to the end. This is the art of persua- 
sion. If the design of the expression be to en- 
gage the imagination — the function of form — 
the principle of form, both as to presenting and 
also as to receiving, must govern, and thought 
and purpose will be in ministry and subserviency. 
This is aesthetic art — art in its narrower import. 
If the design be form simply — pure form — we 
have the domain of free art, so called, embracing 
the special historical arts of painting and sculp- 
ture — the two great plastic arts addressing the 
mind through the medium of light and entering 
through the sense of sight to affect the imagina- 
tion by outline or figure, conjoined with color as 
in the former art, or without, as in the latter. To 
the free arts belongs also the art of music, in 



FORM PRODUCED. 207 

some of its forms, at least, addressing the sense 
of hearing, and of poetry reaching the sensibility 
through language as interpreted by the intelli- 
gence. But art is sometimes made to subserve 
some end extrinsic to that of pure form in the 
imagination ; — it becomes thus partly free, partly 
dependent. Thus it is with architecture and land- 
scape ; also with music, in some of its forms min- 
istering to truth, or to devotion, or to patriotism ; 
and likewise with discourse both in prose and in 
poetry. 

Thus from this cursory survey of the proper 
object of the function of form, whether as capac- 
ity in the sensibility or as faculty in the imagina- 
tion, we find everywhere that the object is the 
exact correlative of the mental activity engaged. 
The one is for the other. The laws of the one 
are conditions for the other. The mind engaged 
acts ever as intelligence, imagination, or will , it 
engages ever and only with idea as thought, or 
form, or purpose. The perfect correspondence 
establishes the correctness of the analysis and de- 
fines with exactness the boundaries of both func- 
tion and object. Each shines brighter in the 
light of the other. The science of the function, 
both as capacity or the proper sensibility, and as 
faculty or the proper imagination, constitutes one 
leading part of psychological science which in its 
unfoldings opens out to view the whole domain 
of the object of the function — the beautiful in its 
large comprehension of import — the idea of form. 



2oS THE SENSIBILITY. 

The science of the object as realized in experi- 
ence is the science of aesthetics, which in its 
turn, as it unfolds itself in exact scientific 
method, reflects back in beautiful correspondence 
the truths of psychology. 



BOOK HI. 

THE INTELLIGENCE.— I. SUBJECTIVE 

VIEW. 



CHAPTER I. 

ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 

§ 136. THE INTELLIGENCE IS THE MIND'S 
FUNCTION OF KNOWING. 

It is otherwise denominated the Cognitive 
Faculty and the Intellect. Its function is sim- 
ply that of knowing ; and all knowing is by this 
function alone. 

§ 137. The intelligence admits divers modifi- 
cations. 

It is modified, first, in respect to its stages as 
complete or incomplete. In order to any knowl- 
edge there must be an object presented to the 
mind to be known. The mere apprehension of 
this object by the intelligence may, for uses of 
convenience in study, properly be viewed as a 
preparatory stage of knowledge. This incom- 
plete and preparatory stage has been denomi- 
nated Present ative Knowledge. 
14 



2io THE INTELLIGENCE. 

But the intelligence cannot rest satisfied with 
this mere presentative knowledge. Its essential 
activity prompts to a further stage, in which the 
object presented to it in the preceding stage is 
recognized in a twofold aspect- — as subject and 
as attribute. Thus if any object is given to it, 
as for instance the sun, the intelligence at once 
proceeds to regard it as having an attribute — 
brightness ; and its knowledge is complete only 
when the mind is in that state which is properly 
expressed in a proposition : the sun is bright. 
Sim and bright are not two different things in 
reality ; but it is the native function of the mind 
at once in every single object presented to it to 
recognize such object under this dual form — the 
form of a subject and an attribute which it unites 
or identifies as one and the same. This form of 
mental action is technically known as the judg- 
ment, § 158. 

This completed form of knowledge has been 
denominated representative knowledge, as it im- 
plies, in addition to the first form or presentative 
knowledge, a reflex act of the mind on the object 
presented to it. More properly and more signifi- 
cantly it may be denominated attributive knowl- 
edge. 

In the earlier stages of mental development, 
presentative knowledge has a greater relative 
prominence than in maturer life. The child per- 
ceives, simply apprehends, relatively more ; but as 
he advances, his simple apprehensions pass more 



ITS NA TURE AND MODIFICA TIONS. 211 

habitually into reflection or judging, that is, into 
proper thought. 

Further, it is to be observed, that although the 
mind instinctively passes on from simple appre- 
hension to reflection as its goal, the movement 
may be instantaneous, or protracted, may even 
halt or be held in suspense. But whether longer 
or shorter in its actual presence this presentative 
knowledge forms a part of the mind's activity at 
the time, and works there with its due organic 
force. A perception, such as a sight of some 
threatening danger, thus may, in what is called 
reflex action, without waiting for a matured 
judgment, affect the nerves and through them 
the action of the heart and limbs and agitate the 
whole body ; or with equal power reach the 
thought and the determinations of the will. An 
intuition may work with similar effect, outwardly 
upon the bodily organism or inwardly upon the 
mental state. So long as actually present in the 
mind such presentative knowledge works its 
appropriate organic work on the whole complex 
being of body and soul. 

§ 138. The intelligence, further, is modified in 
respect to the diverse character of its object. 

We have found that the comprehensive object 
for the intelligence is the true. § 28. But the true 
embraces three distinct elements or constituents — 
the subject, the attribute, and the uniting element, 
called the copula. These elements may severally 



212 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

vary in manifold ways. They so far modify the 
act of the intelligence in knowing. 

§ 139. The intelligence, once more, is modified 
in respect to the sources of its knowledge. 

Its objects are presented to it from two differ- 
ent directions, which it is very important to 
recognize distinctly. These objects are brought 
to it in part from without and presented to it 
through the external senses. The presentative 
knowledge thus attained is called a perception or 
perceptive knozvledge. These objects are brought 
to it in part, moreover, from the mind itself — 
from its own phenomena — or from supersensi- 
ble objects. The presentative knowledge thus 
attained is called an i?ituitio?i or intuitive knozvl- 
edge. 

§ 140. The intelligence, finally, is modified in 
respect to the different functions of the mind 
itself. 

These functions have already been recognized 
as threefold — the sensibility, the intelligence, 
and the will. As functions of the same indivisi- 
ble nature, which in no exercise of any one func- 
tion ever drops entirely either of its other func- 
tions, every act of the intelligence is more or less 
modified by the sensibility and the will. 

Not only this, but the human mind being both 
passive and active in every state, we have ever 
two sides to study, — the passive side in which the 
mind is simply impressed by its object, as in sen- 
sation or emotion, and the active side, in which it 



ITS NA TURE AND MODIFICA TIONS. 213 

properly knows its object, as in perception or in- 
tuition. 

We shall, in the further exposition of the intelli- 
gence, as the knowing factor, present in sepa- 
rate chapters the generic forms of its divers mod- 
ifications. 



CHAPTER II. 



PERCEPTION. 



§ 141. Perception is that function of the 
intelligence by which it apprehends an object pre- 
sented tJirougJi the bodily senses. 

The term perception is used to denote the fac- 
ulty of perceiving ; the exercise of this faculty or 
the act of perceiving ; and also the result of this 
act. The term percept has been proposed to 
denote the result or the product of perception. 

§ 142. Perception is the active or knowing side, 
sensation the passive or feeling side of the same 
state of mental apprehension. 

We have already recognized the truth that the 
mind is in every experience both passive and 
active. This law of mind is formally proposed 
by Sir William Hamilton in its general form, as 
applied to all mental phenomena; it is specifically 
recognized by him in its application here in the 
summary statement : " Cognition and feeling are 
always co-existent." I perceive an orange at the 
same time that I have a sensation of it through 
the eye, the touch, the smell, or the taste. 

But while perception and sensation are but 
opposite sides of the same mental state, which has 



PERCEPTION, 215 

ever an active and a passive side, they are to be 
distinguished from each other in several impor- 
tant respects. 

1. Sensation is the ground or occasion of the 
perception. It is, therefore, properly regarded 
as the logical antecedent of perception, and in 
this sense as prior to it. 

2. Sensation is not only the ground of percep- 
tion — not only conditions it so that perception 
cannot be without sensation — but it also deter- 
mines and shapes perception. Only as percep- 
tion conforms itself exactly to the sensation is it 
legitimate or sound. 

It will ever- be borne in mind that the cognitive 
act, the perception, does not always fasten imme- 
diately on the actual impression — the feeling, 
the sensation as first springing from the inter- 
action of the mind with the object. Sometimes, 
perhaps generally, it is the sensation only as re- 
tained by the imagination which is immediately 
regarded, as already indicated. §§ 85-88. We 
could not err much in saying that the mind is 
often feeling, imaging, and perceiving at the 
same time. The mind is a nature of ceaseless 
activity. Ever changing from one state to another, 
as well as a nature having- a diversity of functions 
which may all be in simultaneous action, it is 
difficult often to mark the transition or to distin- 
guish exactly where one form of mental act or 
affection ends and another begins. The whole 
exposition of mental phenomena must be pre- 



216 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

sented and regarded in the light of this unceasing 
complex activity, bringing in by indistinguish- 
able gradations one mental state out of another, 
changing from one into another. It will not be 
necessary in the discussion of the cognitive act to 
bring out into more formal notice this distinction 
between the form in the sensibility and that in 
the imagination. 

Generally and loosely speaking, sensation and 
perception are in the inverse ratio of each other. 
The stronger the sensation, the weaker the per- 
ception ; and the stronger the perception, the 
weaker the sensation. 

Sir William Hamilton has exemplified this gen- 
eral law in the comparison of the several special 
senses. In sight, perfection is at the maximum, 
sensation at the minimum. We are hardly con- 
scious of any feeling in seeing an ordinary object ; 
we are conscious of a decided knowledge of 
objects that we see. We look at the orange; the 
sight itself is without any feeling intense enough 
to be noticed ; the knowledge of its being before 
us, of its being round and yellow, is perfect be- 
yond that given by all the other senses combined. 
In hearing, there is far more of feeling than in 
sight ; far less of knowledge. In taste and smell 
and special touch, feeling greatly predominates 
and the perception is relatively slight and limited. 

If we take again any particular sense and re- 
gard it separately from the other senses, we 
notice that generally if the feeling is strong, per- 



PERCEPTION. 217 

ception is weak, and the reverse. If the sensa- 
tion of sight, for instance, be strong, we are daz- 
zled — we feel intensely ; but we perceive com- 
paratively little. 

This law, however, cannot be adopted as ab- 
solute or universal. The sensation may be so 
weak as to occasion no perception at all, when 
by the law it should be at its maximum. Th^- 
strength of the perception often varies directly, 
not inversely, as the sensation. If a man touch 
me gently with his finger, I hardly feel it per- 
haps, and hardly perceive the fact that I am 
touched, or what touched me , I have but little 
knowledge because I have but little feeling. If 
he strike me violently with his cane I both feel 
and perceive intensely. 

This general truth, however, is ever to be 
borne in mind that whatever the relation be- 
tween the sensation and the perception in respect 
to their comparative intensity or strength, either 
one may become the object of consciousness to 
the exclusion of the other. The light may come 
streaming in from every visible object upon my 
eye and engage my whole mind with the mere 
feeling of its cheering impressions, so that I shall 
distinguish not a single object and have no con- 
scious perception; or I may so attend to the 
knowledge of particular objects as not to be dis- 
tinctly aware of any sensation. 

§ 143. The Sphere of Perception is the 
world of sensible objects — the entire realm of 



218 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

external phenomena of which we can have any 
intelligence. 

§ 144. Perception is an act of presentative 
knowledge. It gives the knowledge of the ob- 
ject simply, without distinguishing it into sub- 
ject and attribute. 

I perceive an orange ; but in the perception 
itself I only know it as an object without passing 
on to think it to be round or yellow. 

§ 145. Perception gives accordingly only an 
immediate knowledge, in the sense that the 
knowledge which it gives is uot mediated through 
the distinction of subject and attribute. In an- 
other relation, it should be observed, perception 
is said to give a mediate knowledge in so far as 
the knowledge of the external object is mediated 
through the sense - perception. Knowledge is 
thus in one relation immediate, and in another, 
mediate. 

It is true that every object that can be known 
must have an attribute. It is true that the 
mind tends to pass beyond the stage of incom- 
plete knowing to the complete knowledge under 
or through an attribute. But perception is con- 
fined to the first stage. It does not discriminate 
attributes. This discriminative or completed 
knowledge will be investigated hereafter. 

§ 146. It has been a question much discussed 
among philosophers whether in perception we 
have an actual and immediate or only an infer- 
ential knowledge of the external reality: — when 



PERCEPTION. 219 

I perceive the sun, have I an immediate knowl- 
edge of the sun, or do I make up my knowledge 
by divers observations or from divers impres- 
sions or by inference from such impressions. 
The discussion has been confused through differ- 
ing uses of language and differing apprehensions 
of the point at issue. The conclusions, more- 
over, have been influenced greatly by more gen- 
eral theories of knowledge. The simple facts, 
w T hich will hardly be questioned by any candid 
thinker, are : — First, that in perception proper, 
the object reaches the mind at last only through 
the medium of the nervous organism, whatever 
other agencies may have previously intervened. 
Secondly, the energy in the nervous organism 
thus reaching the mind is recognized as an en- 
ergy coming from without, so that the mind 
must be conscious of an exterior energy impress- 
ing it, and accordingly be conscious of an exter- 
nal reality immediately present and interacting 
with it. The source from which the energy orig- 
inally issued, it may be, is a matter for inference. 
When we feel the heat of the sun, the energy 
immediately impressing us is the nerve-force of 
the body, which only represents the force that 
had impressed the nerves, and this latter force 
may have reached the body through divers 
agencies. The sun itself is not immediately 
present with the perceiving mind. It may be 
that it will be possible to determine the original 
source of the energy causing the sensation, to 



220 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

identify the sun as the source of the heat which 
we feel, only after divers experiences and by in- 
ference. The conclusion is accordingly that in 
perception we are conscious of an external ob- 
ject, but may not be able to identify the object 
except by the exercise of the judgment. Per- 
ception gives externality of object, but not nec- 
essarily the particular external object. § 20. 

This great truth that the human mind is thus 
in immediate conscious communion with the 
outer world, cannot then reasonably be ques- 
tioned. The universal consciousness of men at- 
tests it. The inability to determine in many 
cases the actual source of the energy that im- 
presses the mind, to trace back the movement 
of the energy to its original source, cannot in 
reason shake our confidence in the general truth. 
Presumably there are many things which the 
finite mind of man does not know, perhaps even 
is not able to know, at least in its immaturity. 
But it does know some things ; and it knows 
that it knows them. It does know, by immedi- 
ate perception and beyond all question, that it 
sometimes receives impressions from an external 
force upon it ; it does accordingly know imme- 
diately external realities. It may know but a 
part. It may be that it knows vastly more of 
external realities mediately than immediately. 
But this great fact of immediate perception, how- 
ever limited and partial, — this fact of immediate 
consciousness and knowledge of the outer world 



PERCEPTION. 221 

— is beyond all dispute. It is a truth of ines- 
timable value to psychological science, to knowl- 
edge generally. It sustains a vital relationship 
to human character and destiny. It is a mo- 
mentous truth that we are in immediate contact 
with the outer world, that there is something 
besides ourselves, without us, about us, above 
us ; something real ; something that concerns 
us ; something which has to do with us and with 
which we have to do. 



CHAPTER III. 



INTUITION. 



§ 147. INTUITION is that function of the intelli- 
gence by which it apprehends a supersensible object 
presented directly to the mind itself. 

This function has been variously designated 
as self-consciousness, the faculty of internal 
perception, the faculty of internal apprehension. 

The term intuition has been used in psycho- 
logical phraseology in different senses. It is 
thus used to denote the power, the object, the 
mental exertion, and the result ; — that is, it is 
used to denote the intuitive function or power ; 
the intuited object; the intuiting action; and 
the accomplished act of intuition — its result. 

In German science an intuition may be 
either of sensible or of supersensible objects ; — 
may denote an external or internal perception. 
In English literature the term intuition is often 
used to signify a necessary or self-evident truth. 
The preferable use of it as a technical term is 
that indicated in our definition, to denote the 
function of the intelligence in apprehending in- 
ternal or supersensible phenomena, thereby dis- 
tinguished from perception, which has to do 



INTUITION. 223 

with sensible phenomena. Intuition and per- 
ception accordingly constitute the total function 
of presentative knowledge. 

§ 148. The sphere of Intuition, in its narrower 
sense, comprises all that takes place in the mind 
itself — all its feelings, thoughts, volitions. We 
observe or apprehend these mental states ; we are 
conscious of them , we know them. It also, in 
a broader sense, comprises all supersensible reali- 
ties presenting themselves to the mind. If there 
be energies interacting with our minds directly, 
they must be apprehended by us as having an 
external reality, and yet not material or object 
of the bodily sense. It may be that the Divine 
Spirit thus immediately interacts with our spirits. 
To this class must belong also the realities of 
time and space, if they are to be recognized as 
realities. The consideration of these ideas will 
come up more conveniently in a subsequent 
chapter. §§ 190-193. Our immediate appre- 
hensions of these supersensible objects are proper 
intuitions. 

§ 149. An intuition is an act of presentative 
knowledge. The object — the feeling, the cogni- 
tion, the volition, the supersensible reality — is 
simply presented before any resolving of it into 
the dual of subject and attribute : of course be- 
fore any attribution in respect to it. 

Intuition is, therefore, an incomplete knowl- 
edge. It does not distinguish a feeling into 
something having an attribute. We have in an 



224 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

intuition only the knowledge of the feeling be- 
fore distinguishing it as strong or weak, as real 
or imaginary, as having this or that property. 
Our minds by the tendency of their nature press 
on to a complete knowledge. But it is conven- 
ient to recognize this completed knowledge as 
attained by two distinguishable stages. Intui- 
tion, like perception, brings us only over the 
first stage. It gives only incomplete and pre- 
paratory knowledge. 

§ 150. An Intuition gives, accordingly, an im- 
mediate knowledge, in the twofold sense, first, 
that the knowledge it gives is not mediated to 
us through an attribution ; and secondly, that its 
object is not presented through the bodily senses. 

It follows from this that inasmuch as attribu- 
tion ever gives a truth, an intuition properly re- 
gards an object, not a truth. If a truth, that is, 
if a proposition, be regarded in intuition, it is as 
an object simply; in the intuition proper of a 
truth or proposition there is no affirmation by 
the mind itself that the proposition is a true one, 
or indeed that it has any other attribute, as of 
being clear, important, or the like. Like percep- 
tion, intuition is simple apprehension without 
attribution. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THOUGHT. 



§ 151. Thought is that function of the intel- 
ligence by which an object is known by means of 
an attribute. 

The term thought, like intuition, is used in the 
fourfold sense of (i)the faculty; (2) its object ; 
(3) the exersise of the faculty ; (4) the result or 
product of the exercise. 

The faculty itself is, moreover, called by differ- 
ent names, as the Discursive Faculty, the Elab- 
orative Faculty, the Comparative Faculty, the 
Faculty of Relations. 

The nature of thought may be thus exempli- 
fied. If an orange is presented to my sight or 
touch, I have a sensation and a perception of it. 
So far as I am only perceiving, I do not dis- 
tinguish any attribute apart from the subject or 
that to which the attribute is supposed to be- 
long; the perception does not reach the distinc- 
tion expressed in the proposition; the orange is 
round. Perception carries my mind only through 
the first or preparatory stage of knowing. But 
when my mind passes on to the second stage or 
to that of a completed knowledge, it has a 



226 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

thought of the orange, which is properly and fully 
expressed in the proposition, this thing is round. 
I have now (i) a subject of which an attribute is 
thought — this tiling ; (2) an attribute belonging 
to this subject — round; and (3) that which is 
expressed by the word is, which identifies this 
subject and this attribute as one and the same. 
This is a typical form of all primitive thought, to 
which all thought however complex, however de- 
rived, may ever be referred back as the standard 
and model of all. I think when I distinguish in 
a perception or intuition, attribute and subject, 
and then affirm the attribute of the subject, as in 
the proposition : the oremge is round. 

It will be observed that the thought, this thing 
is round, is before all proper abstraction, before 
all analysis, before all generalization. A blind 
person for the first time coming into the warm 
rays of the sun might have a thought of a thing 
as warm without knowing anything else about 
the sun. If his mind were left to its own tend- 
ency he could, on perceiving the warmth, pro- 
ceed to a completed knowledge by thinking a sub- 
ject as having an attribute. He would have 
the thought : this thing — the sun — is warm. But 
in this he w r ould not have abstracted anything — 
any attribute from any other thing or from any 
other attribute ; for by the supposition there had 
been given him but one thing, one attribute. 
He had not properly analyzed anything or any 
attribute ; for the thing was one and single and 



THOUGHT. 227 

the attribute was one and simple, and neither 
therefore could be analyzed. He had not gen- 
eralized ; for this thing might have been to him 
the first and only thing of a supposable class of 
warm things ; it might have been to him the first 
conscious experience of the attribute of warmth. 
Abstraction, analysis, generalization, are proc- 
esses which are applicable properly to complex 
and to derivative thought and apply to aggre- 
gated subjects and attributes. Single and simple 
thought may take place without any of these 
processes. In order to obtain a clear and ac- 
curate notion of thought in its essential nature 
it is desirable to clear our view from all those 
processes which are not of the very essence of 
thought ; from all those processes accordingly 
which can be applied only to complex or deriva- 
tive thought. 

§ 152. Thought follows and pre-supposes either 
perception or intuition, the one or the other. 

The progress of the mind from the perception 
to the thought may be more or less rapid. It 
may be instantaneous, or the mind may linger on 
the perception to obtain a deeper and fuller im- 
pression ; and thus it may happen that the prog- 
ress may be arrested and the perception never 
ripen into full thought. 

It is to be remarked, also, that a previous 
thought, as well as a perception or intuition, 
may be the antecedent to a new thought. The 
finiteness and dependence of the human mind, 



228 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

however, compel us to the belief that perception, 
perhaps intuition, also, must have preceded the 
first thought. 

§ 153. The three constituent elements of every 
thought are: — 

1. The SUBJECT, or that of which some at- 
tribute is thought ; 

2. The ATTRIBUTE, or that which is thought 
of the subject ; and 

3. The COPULA, or that which affirms or de- 
nies the attribute of the subject ; that is, which 
identifies them, or differences the one from the 
other. 

These three elements are necessary in all valid 
thought, whether primitive or derivative. If not 
expressed they must be implied. Explicitly or 
implicitly, they exist in all legitimate thought. 
There is ever to be found in a thought a subject 
implying an attribute belonging to it, an attri- 
bute implying a subject to which it belongs, and 
the union or identification of the subject and 
this attribute. In the thought this thing is round, 
the subject, this tiring- — orange— is not really 
different from the attribute; we do not appre- 
hend the orange, and then roundness ; it is the 
same as the attribute, and is in fact identified 
with it in the thought by the copula, is. 

In interpreting an expression in language of 
an act of thought, such as this — the ora?ige is 
round — it is often necessary to bear in mind that 
language is, strictly speaking, the representation 



THOUGHT. 229 

immediately of our thoughts of things, not of the 
things themselves, or even of the things as per- 
ceived. 

The expression means strictly : the orange as 
thought by me is round. That is, my concept of 
the orange is identical in one respect with my 
concept of roundness. The two terms, known as 
subject and attribute, that are united or identi- 
fied in the full body of the judgment, are not 
things, but thoughts of things. They are correl- 
atives, the one necessarily implying the other; 
neither can be without the other. They denote 
distinctions which exist only in thought, not in 
the reality of things. When we speak of the 
subject as the unknown basis of attributes, we 
can mean only that of subject apart from its 
correlative attribute, we can know nothing ; we 
know nothing except through some attribute, as 
we can know no attribute except as we know, so 
far at least, some subject to which it belongs. 
Knowledge, is in fact, when full and complete, 
nothing but the recognition of an object as some- 
thing with an attribute. 

The term substance is synonymous with subject, 
as is also substratum. They are all words from 
the Latin and alike point to that which is con- 
ceived to underlie attributes. Substance and sub- 
stratum are used more in metaphysical discourse, 
while subject is a technical word used in logical 
science, although not confined to this use. An 
attribute expressed in a proposition, is in logic 



230 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

termed a predicate. The subject and predicate 
in a logical proposition are called terms, from the 
Latin termini, limits, being the terminal elements, 
while the copula is the middle and connecting 
element of the proposition. 

Thought is properly called the discursive intel- 
ligence, inasmuch as, when a perception is pre- 
sented to it, the mind in thought runs in two 
directions — discurrit — recognizing the single ob- 
ject presented in the perception under the two- 
fold form of subject and attribute. 

The object remains the same ; it is still single. 
The change from the singleness in the perception 
to the twofoldness in the thought is in the mind 
alone. But the mind retains the original single- 
ness in the object by its identifying the twofold 
members of the thought through the copula. 

§ 154. The copula, it appears from the fore- 
going exposition, is the more vital constituent in 
thought. Its function is purely either(i), that of 
identifying some object with some attribute, that 
is, of asserting that such object is in whole or in 
part the same as the attribute ; or (2), that of 
differencing the object from some supposed attri- 
bute, that is, of denying that the subject is the 
same as the supposed attribute. 

As there can be no complete act of thought in 
which there are not a subject and an attribute, 
identified or differenced, wholly or partially, the 
function of thought is appropriately designated 
as the function of the same a?zd the different. Its 



THOUGHT. 231 

essential principle, its determining characteristic 
or law is accordingly the principle of sameness 
and difference, or, in another like significant 
phrase, of identity and diversity. This is its 
one fundamental and comprehensive law : — ALL 
THOUGHT MUST IDENTIFY OR DIFFERENCE. 

§ 155. But of this general law there may be 
distinguished four different modifications which 
thus become special laws of thought. The four 
consist of two pairs, in each of which pairs is one 
positive and one prohibitory law. They are 
evolved as follows : 

If all legitimate thought identifies or differ- 
ences subject and attribute, then, clearly, if we 
think we must do this and do nothing else, we 
have thus the first pair of laws : — 

First Fundamental Law of Thought, positive ; 
The Law of Disjunction ; — In all thinking we 
must identify or difference subject and attribute. 

Second Fundamental Law of Thought, prohibi- 
tory ; The Law of Exclusion ; — In all thinking 
we must not do anything else than either identify 
or difference. 

The second pair of laws apply the first pair to 
specific acts of thought, in determining precisely 
what is to be identified or differenced. 

Third Fundamental Law of Thought, positive ; 
The Law of Identity ; — In all thinking we 
must identify with the subject only the attribute 
that belongs to it or difference from the subject 
only an attribute that does not belong to it — in 



2$z THE INTELLIGEXCE. 

other words, we must identify only the same and 
difference only the different. 

Fourth Fundamental Law of Thought, prohibit- 
ory ; The Law of Contradiction; — In all 
thinking we must not identify with the subject 
an attribute that does not belong to it, nor differ- 
ence from the subject an attribute that belongs to 
it — in other words, we must not identify the differ- 
ent, and ive must not difference the same. 

The third law in this enumeration has more 
commonly been placed as the first of the funda- 
mental laws, and the fourth as the second, revers- 
ing the order of the pairs. The first and second 
in this enumeration have been generally com- 
bined in one. But logical consistency requires 
that the two forms — positive and prohibitory — be 
distinguished in this pair as in the other. A like 
practical convenience is gained from the separa- 
tion of the two. 

It is evident that there can be no other funda- 
mental law of thought, of this order at least. 
The enumeration is exhaustive as appears from 
the application of the laws themselves. 

The first pair of laws, it may be observed, pre- 
scribe what is requisite in any thinking ; the 
second, what is requisite in right thinking. The 
first pair prescribe what must be observed in 
order to any form of thought ; the second, what 
must be observed in order to any right thought. 

§ 156. These four fundamental laws of thought 
are thus educed directly from the very nature of 



THOUGHT. 233 

thought — from its one essential attribute or char- 
acteristic as ever identifying or differencing. They 
are valid and authoritative over all thinking, 
simply because obviously there can be no true 
thinking except as they are observed. Their 
validity and authority are founded thus in the 
nature of thought, not at all in any consent of 
men. They are not assumed ; they are not prop- 
erly a priori, for they are evolved from an ob- 
served act of thought — from experience ; they 
are not conditional to thought or experience, 
only as they are essential to all thought which 
could not be if they were not observed, in the 
same way as roundness and brightness are condi- 
tional co the existence of a sun ; they do not 
precede thought — are not prior to it — but neces- 
sarily appear in thought. 

They are, further, the validating principles of 
all thought. If observed we have legitimate 
thought— true thought, so far at least as the 
essential element in thinking is concerned. The 
subject may be erroneously assumed, the attri- 
bute may be erroneously viewed ; but if as as- 
sumed and viewed, subject and attribute are rec- 
ognized as the same, the thought is so far true 
and valid. Here is to be found the only fitting 
and decisive ultimate test of thought — in the fact 
that these fundamental laws of thought are ob- 
served in it. 

§ 157. There are commonly reckoned three 
generic forms of thought regarded as product : 



234 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

the judgment, the concept, the reasoning. But it is 
more correct to regard the judgment as the one 
primitive form of thought. The judgment is tri- 
membral, being constituted of the two terms or 
concepts — the subject and the attribute — and the 
copula. These three members emerge with and 
in the judgment, as organic parts of the one 
body. They are congenital with it and with one 
another. The reasoning is a derivative move- 
ment of thought from a judgment. 

§ 158. The Judgment may be defined as that 
act of the intelligence in which an object is recog- 
nized under the form of a subject and attribute. 

It is of two generic forms: (1) affirmative, in 
which the attribute is identified with the subject, 
or recognized as the same in whole or in part 
with it, as, the sun is bright ; and (2) negative, in 
which the attribute is denied of the subject or 
differenced from it, as, the sun is not dark. 
The relation between the subject and the attri- 
bute in an act of thought is variously indicated in 
language. 

When expressed in language the logical judg- 
ment is called a proposition ; and in grammatical 
science it is known as the sentence. The attribute 
is in logical and grammatical technicality known 
as the predicate. 

§ 159. The CONCEPT is either one of the two 
terminal members of the judgment — the subject 
or the attribute. 

Its name is from the Latin, con-ccptum, import- 



THOUGHT. 235 

ing, that from its very nature it is to be taken 
with the other term of the judgment of which it 
is a member. 

As a member the concept ever implies a judg- 
ment, as a limb implies the body of which it is a 
member. It arises or comes to be in the mind 
simultaneously with the judgment, as members 
come to be simultaneously with the body. The 
single object, apprehended by the mind in per- 
ception or intuition, is in the act of thinking re- 
solved into the dual of subject and attribute 
which are identified or differenced in the judg- 
ment. § 151. 

There are accordingly the two classes of con- 
cepts : subject -concepts and attribute-concepts. It 
is often of importance to accurate thinking that 
the characteristics of these two classes be care- 
fully discriminated. 

If we unite the subjects of several judgments 
having the same predicate, we have generic or 
class-concepts, which are expressed in grammatical 
class-nouns. This process of thought in deriving 
this kind of concepts is Generalization. 

If we unite the predicates of several judgments 
having the same subject, we have composite con- 
cepts, expressed in grammatical abstracts. This 
is the logical process of Determination. 

We may think of an attribute as a subject. 
We may take thus the attribute round and think 
of it as having this or that attribute. We ex- 
press it in that case in the form of a noun — 



236 THE INTELLIGEXCE. 

roundness ; as we say, the roundness is perfect, the 
roundness is imperfect ; it is that of a circle or that 
of a sphere ; and the like. Then we may unite 
several subjects of this kind when parts of judg- 
ments having the same predicate, and we have a 
class of attributes. A class of attributes is called 
in distinction from a class of original subjects, a 
category, from a Greek word signifying predicated. 
A CATEGORY is a class of attributes. 

§ 160. The Reasoning is a derivative from one 
judgment to another. 

The derivation may consist in a change of the 
form or in a change of the matter of the primi- 
tive judgment. 

The derivation may be by a single step as in 
immediate reasonings ; or by two or more steps as 
in mediate reasonings. 

It is the province of logic to unfold the laws of 
thought and the different forms of valid thought, 
distinguishing the different kinds, with their sev- 
eral characteristics. There are, however, two sub- 
ordinate movements of thought so important to 
science that an exceptional mention of them 
may properly be made here. They are the two 
forms of Mediate Reasonings, that is, reasonings 
in which the conclusion is reached from a given 
proposition or premise through another proposi- 
tion, and more exactly through one of the terms 
of a proposition. They are distinguished from 
each other respectively as the deductive movement 
when from the whole to the part, or as the induc- 
tive movement when from one part to another 



THOUGHT. 237 

part of the same whole. These are the two and, 
of this order obviously, the only two relation- 
ships in thought as respects quantity. They are 
co-ordinate movements. The deductive move- 
ment has received most of the consideration of 
logical writers ; systems of formal logic being for 
the most part simply treatises on deductive logic. 
Inductive thought has been overlooked or neg- 
lected, and has been much misunderstood, its 
true relation to the other movement of thought 
as respects quantity — the deductive movement — 
being ignored or misconstrued. The term induc- 
tion has recently been very vaguely used in its 
application to what is supposed to be the char- 
acteristic modern method of science, in distinction 
from the ancient method. In this use it often 
signifies simply this : — that the method is one of 
observation, one of individual fact, combined 
perhaps with generalization. But induction 
properly is simply a movement of thought from 
one part to another part of the same whole as 
deduction is from the whole to some part. Gen- 
eralization, which is often confounded with logical 
determination, is wholly foreign from induction 
and may be conjoined with it or not. Induction 
has its own laws and legitimate forms, and ad- 
mits the fullness and preciseness of exposition 
that deduction has received. It is the vital 
movement of thought in the study of nature. 
Modern science can regulate its processes and 
validate its results only by recognition of these 
laws and forms. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE CATEGORIES OF PURE THOUGHT. 

§ 161. By a Category is understood, as before 
stated, § 159, a class of attributes, as distin- 
guished from a class of things or of subjects. 
In the study of the nature of thought it is very 
desirable to ascertain the attributes that are 
proper to thought and are presented to our 
minds in every instance of thought. To inspect 
any such instance of thought, that is, to bring 
before our intuition the attributes that are pre- 
sented when we think, and that may be dis- 
cerned in every thought, to note the attributes 
thus presented, to group them into classes, is 
one of the leading necessities in a complete 
psychology. 

To collect these attributes into classes and 
thus frame a system of the categories of thought, 
has been from the earliest days of philosophy a 
zealous labor of the ablest thinkers. We have 
as the results of these labors the Hindoo system 
of categories, the system of Aristotle, and also 
divers modern systems, among which ranks 
most conspicuous that of Kant. These systems 
are certainly but approximations to an ideal per- 



THE CATEGORIES OF PURE THOUGHT. 239 

fection and have been, each in its turn, subjected 
to severe criticism. They have been condemned 
and reprobated especially, as was to be expected 
they would be, by men who had not carefully 
ascertained what a category as a class of attri- 
butes means. A system of categories of thought 
is simply a systematic collection of the general 
attributes pertaining to thought. In forming it 
we are to proceed just as we would in forming a 
system of the attributes belonging to external 
bodies. In this latter case we take some partic- 
ular body — an orange — and note the attributes 
presented to our perception and gather these 
into classes, as in Hamilton's enumeration, of 
extension, incompressibility, mobility, situation, at- 
traction, repulsion, inertia. Just in an analogous 
way we take a thought in its simplest form and 
note what attributes are presented to our intui- 
tion. The enumeration which we subjoin may 
not be complete ; it might be presumptuous to 
claim such perfection of investigation in this 
stage of psychological science. But we may in 
our measure do a satisfactory work for ourselves 
if we proceed as far as our ability will allow, 
carefully and in scientific method. 

§ 162. Reverting to our type-form of a primi- 
tive thought — the orange is round — we recall its 
origin in a perception in which an object, sjngle 
and simple, was apprehended by the mind, being 
presented to it through the external sense. The 
perception was an incomplete stage of intelli- 



2 4 o THE INTELLIGENCE. 

gfence. The mind pressed on to a completed 
stage. The transition might be immediate, so 
that the thought should be simultaneous with 
the perception. It might, however, be prolonged 
more or less, or, indeed, possibly be broken off 
so as to be followed by no proper thought. The 
completed stage of intelligence gave us its dis- 
cursive form in the judgment, the primitive form 
of thought ; the essential characteristic of which, 
distinguishing it from the perception, was found 
to be that the single object in the perception 
was now discriminated into the twofold form 
of subject and attribute which, however, the 
mind still kept as one and identical — the subject 
not being a different reality from the attributes, 
but the same as they. The copula, being the 
identifying element, is thus essential to all 
thought and must characterize every valid deriva- 
tive of thought. As the mind thus in reflection 
turns in thought upon what was given as one 
object in the perception, it may recognize a 
second attribute or a third, in fact an indefinite 
number of attributes — intrinsic, as yelloiv,J7iicy, 
decaying, or extrinsic as present, selected from a 
number, and the like ; essential or accidental. 
Such are attributes pertaining to the object pre- 
sented to the mind in the perception and origi- 
nating in that. But there is another more im- 
portant class of attributes which originate in the 
thought itself and pertain to thought as such, and 
therefore may be recognized in any judgment 



THE CATEGORIES OF PURE THOUGHT 241 

whatever. These we now proceed to enumer- 
ate and unfold. 

§ 163. Category of identity. In the first 
place, in reflecting on the judgment, the orange 
is round, we recognize the truth that as the 
copula, which identifies the subject and the at- 
tribute, is of the very essence of this judgment, 
and of every judgment, and consequently of all 
thought or completed knowledge, everything 
of which we can think must admit this identi- 
fication. There is given in this, as in every 
judgment, this attribute of identity, pertaining to 
whatever may be thought by the human mind, 
as every such object must, in order to be thought, 
present a subject that can be identified with an 
attribute or be differenced from it. 

We have thus what is called the category of 
identity — the most fundamental of all the cate- 
gories of pure thought. It will be remarked in 
regard to it, first, that it is an intuition. It is 
not a perception ; it does not belong to the sen- 
sation ; it does not belong to the external object — 
the orange. It is presented to us by the act of 
the intelligence in its completed form of a judg- 
ment. It is an intuition. 

Next, it is a necessary attribute, in the sense 
that it is impossible to think at all without hav- 
ing this attribute present in the thought, although 
seldom perhaps brought out into distinct con- 
sciousness. It is as necessary to thought as 
form and color to the orange, or to any visible 
16 



242 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

object. It is in truth the essential characteris- 
tic of thought. 

Further, it is universal, for no thought is ever 
experienced without it. 

Still further, it is presented to the mind in a 
way precisely analogous to that in which the 
form and the color of the orange are presented. 
It is in the thought, and the mind takes notice 
of it ; as the form is in the orange and the mind 
takes notice of it. We call this notion of the 
attribute in the one case an intuition, in the 
other a perception, simply to distinguish the 
different sources from which they come. The 
intuition comes from the thought within ; the 
perception from the orange without. There is 
no mystery about the one more than about the 
other. The one is the attribute of an inner ex- 
perience, the other of an outer object, both being 
founded in the nature of objects — the nature of 
mind and body. It is not to be assumed as if 
it had no ground. Thought itself is such that 
it has this attribute ; as the orange is such that 
it has this round form. It misleads in regard to 
its nature to speak of identity as a native cogni- 
tion of the mind, for it is no more so than figure 
in a visible object is a native cognition; or to 
speak of it as an original principle, independent in 
its rise in the mind of actual experience ; or as 
a regulative law in any other sense than that 
every essential attribute of an object is a regula- 
tive law of that object. Identity is a regulative 



THE CATEGORIES OF PURE THOUGHT. 243 

law of thought, simply because it is an essential 
attribute of thought — of thought as an actual 
experience, as a mental phenomenon. 

The opposite of identity is difference. The 
mind separates a subject from a supposed attri- 
bute as well as unites ; it denies as well as 
affirms. These are the two alternative forms of 
thought — identifying and differencing ; affirming 
and denying. We have accordingly the two 
kinds of judgments, affirmative and negative, as 
already named. 

Identity is total or partial. It is total when 
the subject and the attribute which are identified 
in the judgment are in all respects one and the 
same, as 1=1, or the self is the self. It is partial 
when the subject is only in part, in some re- 
spects but not in all, the same as the attribute. 
Most actual judgments are partially identical. 
In the judgment, the orange is round, the subject 
orange is identified only in respect to its form as 
round — is identified with but one of its manifold 
attributes. 

Partial identity is denoted by the terms like- 
ness, similarity, resemblance. These terms denote 
attributes, and as such ever imply subjects and 
are properly applicable only to subjects, whether 
original subjects or attributes treated as subjects. 
We say : an orange is like a peach in its form ; 
we do not say, round is peach-like ; while we might 
say the roundness ispeach-like. Similarity and re- 
semblance as the etymology indicates, is but par- 



244 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

tial sameness or partial identity — sameness in 
some respects, not in all. 

We have thus divers modifications of this at- 
tribute of identity. Besides those that have been 
mentioned there are manifold other intrinsic 
modifications ; and of the extrinsic modifications, 
or those which are relative to the objects of 
thought or to other mental phenomena, there is 
obviously an indefinite number. All these modifi- 
cations including also all analogous modifications 
of the category of difference, are grouped to- 
gether under the one class and known by the 
name of the category of identity. 

§ 164. 2. Category of quantity. It is ob- 
vious from an inspection of our typical judgment, 
the orange is round, that there is presented to us 
in a way perfectly analogous to that in which the 
attribute of round was presented to our percep- 
tion and precisely as the attribute of identity 
was presented to our intuition, a second attribute 
of the judgment, which is designated under the 
name of Quantity. There is the one subject and 
there is the one attribute ; these are different in 
a certain respect ; at least so far as this, that one 
is subject of which something is thought and the 
other is attribute which is thought of the subject. 
They are thus two, and yet they are one ; they 
are identical in a certain respect ; they are in fact 
identified in the very nature of the judgment. 
Two things — the two terms — are united. This 
property of being known as more than one in 



THE CATEGORIES OF PURE THOUGHT. 245 

such a way that the several parts may be united 
in one whole, is the essential property of quan- 
tity. 

Such is the rise of the category of Quantity. 
It originates in a judgment as the completed 
stage of the intelligence by which an object 
given as single in the perception is recognized in 
the judgment as being in the twofold form of 
subject and attribute, which terms, constituting 
the matter of the judgment, are identified in it. 
Perception gives no quantity ; this is a property 
of thought. All thought is thus necessarily 
quantitative. We may discern this attribute in 
every thought, every judgment, as we discern the 
attribute of round in the orange. It belongs to 
thought as thought ; it characterizes all thought. 
It pertains, however, it should be observed, to the 
matter of thought — to the terms. 

It is not an original, independent principle, 
existing by itself in the mind, or arising in the 
mind by any law of its nature, otherwise than as 
a simple attribute of thought. It is originally 
presented to us as an attribute of thought in the 
inspection or intuition of the thought itself, pre- 
cisely as the attribute of round is presented to us 
in the perception of the orange. 

On this simple notion of quantity as one of the 
essential attributes of thought, to be recognized 
in any completed form of thought, rest all the 
modifications of quantity as diversely applied in 
the manifold processes of thought. 



246 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

But one form or derivation or application of 
this attribute should be specifically mentioned — 
it is the relation of whole and parts. The two 
terms of a judgment are parts which are in the 
identification of the judgment brought into one 
whole. The relation of whole and parts has thus 
its origin in the judgment. This relation be- 
comes more pronounced in the process of logical 
amplification. Thus, if we have two propositions 
affirming two attributes of the same subject, as 
the sun is round, the sun is bright, we have by- 
uniting them, the sun is round and brigJit, a whole 
of attributes, the sun containing the two attri- 
butes of round and bright as parts of it. When- 
ever we think of an object as being a whole, 
having parts, or as a part of a whole* we think 
such an object under the category of Quantity. 

§ 165. 3. Category of Modality. A third 
attribute of thought is presented to us as we 
turn our view on the more essential element of 
thought — the copula — which identifies the two 
terms or parts of the matter — the subject and the 
attribute ; it is the attribute of Modality. The 
copula, or the proper thinking element in the 
judgment, is in this respect distinguished from the 
matter or the terms of the judgment. While it is 
our own, and is presented to our intuition by the 
mind itself, the matter of the judgment may be 
originally from a source foreign or extrinsic to 
the mind, and in every individual instance of 



THE CATEGORIES OF PURE THOUGHT. 247 

thought is but a datum — something presented to 
.the thought. 

Now, as thought cannot deny itself, it must 
ever accept its own action. To thought itself 
the identifying element necessitates its own affir- 
mations or negations. The matter as foreign to 
thought, is in reference to our thinking, acci- 
dental, contingent. To question whether the sub- 
ject and the attribute are identified in valid 
thought is absurdity itself. The skeptic who 
questions this destroys the very foundation of all 
thought, of all opinion, of all belief, of all knowl- 
edge ; and has no right to think, much less to 
question the thoughts of others. 

Thus we have given in the very nature of a 
judgment the distinction of the necessary in 
thought from the contingent. But knowledge 
characterized in this respect as necessary or con- 
tingent, is thereby brought under the general 
category of modality; just as an orange charac- 
terized as round comes under the general attri- 
bute of form. 

The leading forms in which this attribute ap- 
pears are such as possible and impossible ; probable 
and improbable ; necessary and contingent. 

As in the case of the other two categories, this 
one of modality is applied to objects external to 
the mind. Just so far as such objects approxi- 
mate the nature of thought in this respect, they 
are regarded as necessary or the opposite. We 
speak thus of the necessities in nature as we 



248 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

speak of the necessities in truth or knowledge. 
But this language is not to be taken in its strict 
and literal import. Nature reveals no necessities 
to us. We know nature only through the testi- 
mony of our senses ; and as Reid profoundly 
and truly says : " Our senses testify only what 
is, and not what must necessarily be." This 
truth is re-affirmed by Sir William Hamilton, who 
says : " All necessity is in fact subjective to us." 

Modality, it is to be remarked, in its different 
modifications of necessity and contingency, is not 
an independent, self-existing thing; it is an attri- 
bute, and properly and originally an attribute of 
thought. It originates in that ; it is a necessary 
property of all thought, as all thought, all true 
knowledge, ever admits of being regarded as nec- 
essary or otherwise. 

These categories or generic classes of attributes 
are categories of pure thought. That is, they 
are attributes which pertain to thought itself ir- 
respective of its content. They partake of the 
very essence of thought and must therefore exist 
in every legitimate form of thought. Identity, 
Quantity, and Modality, which last named cate- 
gory is more commonly recognized under the 
name of Necessity, constitute the most funda- 
mental class of those ideas which have very erro- 
neously been considered as " native cognitions," 
" first principles," " self-evident and primitive no- 
tions," " a priori cognitions," in the sense that they 
exist in the mind prior to all experience and are 



THE CATEGORIES OF PUKE THOUGHT. 249 

even conditional to any experience — any feeling, 
thought, or purpose. They have been repre- 
sented as if held, like arrows in a quiver, at the 
back of all intelligence, and as if thrust forward 
by some inconceivable force inherent or extrinsic 
when the suitable occasion arises, or when the 
fitting object appears, and fastened on the object. 
These ideas, the ideas of identity, quantity, and 
modality or necessity, are known to exist; it is 
known that they do not belong to the object in 
itself ; the inference has been that they exist in 
the mind previous to the presentation of the ob- 
ject, although not manifesting their existence 
until the object is presented. When that ap- 
pears, the suitable idea, it is supposed, leaps forth 
from its hidden repository and invests the object 
so that in the knowledge of the object it neces- 
sarily appears in the garb of that idea. The pre- 
posterousness of the whole assumption is fairly 
imaged in the waggish direction, how to make a 
cannon : — " take a hollow and pour melted iron 
about it." The difficulty is to find the " hollow ; " 
— to discover where it is kept ; in what state it 
exists ; how we are to get hold of it ; in what pos- 
sible mode or form or relation these " native cog- 
nitions " exist in the mind. The very essence of 
the human mind is activity ; its life is first mani- 
fested in some action, and can have no conceiv- 
able receptacle of ideas till they have been origi- 
nated in positive exertion of mental energy. Still 
further, what determines the idea to leap forth and 



250 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

fasten itself upon its object ; how does it know 
that the object presented is a suitable one to 
receive the idea? The assumption cannot be 
viewed from any point without exposing its 
utter preposterousness. The simple truth in the 
case is that these ideas are the attributes of the 
intelligence in the form of thought, to be attained 
on mere inspection of any act of thought. Sir 
William Hamilton tells the whole truth respect- 
ing them when he says they are "the laws of 
thought." A law of thought can here mean 
nothing but an essential attribute of thought. 



CHAPTER VI. 

INTELLECTUAL APPREHENSION AND REPRESEN- 
TATION. 

§ 166. The intelligence is modified in a two- 
fold way in its relations to the sensibility, (i) as 
receiving truth, and (2) as expressing truth. The 
intelligence is thus both a capacity of knowledge 
and also a faculty of knowledge just as the sen- 
sibility is passive as recipient of form, and also 
active as productive of form. In its function as 
a capacity, the action of the intelligence is de- 
nominated Apprehension ; in its function as a 
faculty, it is denominated Representation. 

% 167. Intellectual apprehension is ac- 
cordingly defined as the function of the mind in 
receiving the true. 

It includes Perception and Intuition. These 
are the different kinds of apprehension distin- 
guished in reference to the two sources of knowl- 
edge, external and internal. 

It is distinguished also in respect to the 
grounds on which the true is accepted as such. 
It is simple when the true is apprehended as it 
comes in its own light or as through the natural 



252 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

channels of communication as through the senses 
or on testimony. It is comprehensive when the 
true is apprehended in relation to the grounds on 
which its acceptance is to rest, and is accepted 
by reason of these grounds, that is, as necessarily 
involved in other admitted truths. Simple appre- 
hension thus is intellectual faith in its exacter 
sense, as that form of knowledge in which the 
intelligence accepts the true as true on the sim- 
ple ground of the truth's own nature or the 
trustworthiness of its natural channels. The 
human intelligence depends on the true as the 
object necessary for its action, as its natural cor- 
relate. In faith it gives to this sense of organic 
relationship and dependence its proper sway, and 
accepts the true as simply accredited by this 
organic relationship between it and the true. 
This is the meaning of faith as distinguished 
from demonstrated knowledge. The term is, 
however, familiarly used to distinguish a lower 
or weaker intelligence from a higher and more 
intense form of intelligence. 

Intellectual apprehension is related on its 
passive side to the sensibility. It is, in truth, as 
intimated, the intelligence side of the single men- 
tal state which, when regarded on the side of the 
sensibility, is named under the forms of that 
function. Perception, thus, is but the intelli- 
gence side of sensation. 

This mental act or state is modified indefi- 
nitely in respect to the relative degrees in which 



INTELLECTUAL REPRESENTATION. 253 

the sensibility and the intelligence appear in it. 
The one or the other may greatly predominate in 
different cases. Yet even when the sensibility 
is predominant, we may direct our attention 
rather to the intellectual side, and so make it the 
really predominant element to our view, and 
then we speak of the act as apprehension and 
not as impression or affection or other term 
denoting properly a form of the sensibility. 

§ 168. Intellectual Representation is 
defined as the function of the mind in presenting 
the true. 

It is distinguished as Demonstration, in the 
larger sense, when the grounds of the truth are 
presented with the truth itself. 

It is related to the active side of the sensibil- 
ity, the imagination proper. It differs from 
Philosophical Imagination only in this, that it 
points to the intelligence side of the act or state, 
while the latter term points to the imagination 
side. 

The two functions vary indefinitely in their 
relative degrees of predominance in different 
cases. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CURIOSITY AND ATTENTION. 

§ 169. The Intelligence is modified in respect 
to the will in a twofold way: (1) as determined 
in its activity only by the instincts of mind as an 
essentially active nature, in curiosity ; and (2) 
as positively determined by the will proper, in 
attention. 

§ 170. By Curiosity is meant, the instinctive 
desire of knowledge in the human mind. 

The mind, so far as active, seeks for truth or 
knowledge. Such is its natural drift or tendency. 
This feature particularly characterizes it in its in- 
fancy. All objects of knowledge are almost 
equally attractive to it, for its selecting power 
is then feeble, and habit, taste, or disposition is 
undeveloped. In its progress, this instinct, un- 
less overborne in indolence or indulgence, ac- 
quires ever additional strength. If rightly di- 
rected and cultivated it ultimately makes the 
intellectual giant in knowledge. With advanc- 
ing development, it turns more and more to 
specific fields of truth and acquires distinction 
in particular branches of knowledge. More prop- 
erly and characteristically instinctive and spon- 



CURIOSITY AND A TTENTION. 255 

taneous, it yet comes under the regulation and 
control of the will, although its nature is not 
essentially changed by this control. 

§ 171. By ATTENTION is meant the voluntary 
determination of the intelligence to objects of 
knowledge. 

Curiosity passes into attention in the natural 
growth of mind as instinct passes into power of 
will : and the mind acquires in its growth more 
and more entire and absolute control over its 
own acts and states. The desire of knowledge — 
curiosity — at the same time strengthens in itself, 
and also " spends itself in will." Attention is 
susceptible of indefinite development. It is very 
weak in beginning study. The tyro in knowledge 
finds it hard to keep his thought steadily on any 
subject of study. The power of attention grows 
as he advances. In its higher degrees it marks 
the intellectual genius ; for nothing more charac- 
terizes the man of genius than the power of 
fixed attention. 

Attention is conscious or unconscious. At 
first it is often necessary that the mind with de- 
liberate, conscious intention, bend itself to its 
work, exclude distracting objects, and fasten its 
regard on the single subject of its study. Re- 
peated effort in this conscious attention passes 
into habit ; and the mind holds on in its atten- 
tive study, conscious of no particular energy of 
the will. 



256 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

Attention, as applied to external objects, is 
known as Observation ; as applied to matters of 
our own consciousness, it is designated Reflec- 
tion. 



THE INTELLIGENCE,— II. OBJECTIVE 

VIEW. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TRUE — ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 

§ 172. The True is, as already shown, § 28, the 
proper object of the Intelligence ; — it is that 
which this function of the mind immediately and 
exclusively respects. 

The term — both in the adjective form, true — 
and also in the noun form — truth — is used in 
divers ' senses, or more properly speaking, in 
divers modifications of its primary meaning. In 
its most exact and proper uses it is applied to a 
completed thought or knowledge which, as we 
have seen, appears first in the logical judgment. 
A perfect judgment or thought means a true 
thought, and truth signifies a right or perfect 
judgment or thought. Corresponding to this 
subjective use, is the objective employment of 
the term to denote that which is judged or 
thought — the object of a perfect judgment or 
thought. Truth, thus, is the object upon which 
the knowing faculty acts ; it is that which a cog- 
17 



25S THE INTELLIGENCE. 

nitive or knowing act respects. A " true thing" 
is that which may be perfectly known ; in other 
words, that which has properties congruously 
united in one whole and which can accordingly 
be thought or known. A true man thus is one 
who has the properties that should characterize a 
man in right relationship to one another. The 
term is applied to the object of a judgment or 
thought as one whole, constituted of right ele- 
ments or parts rightly disposed. A true judg- 
ment or thought thus is one in which the subject 
is a true concept, that is, a true representative in 
thought of the object, in which also the attribute 
is one that truly belongs to the subject, and one, 
moreover, in which the copula identifies or differ- 
ences the subject and the attribute. A true 
proposition is such a judgment correctly ex- 
pressed. The veriest heart and core of the true 
is to be found in the copula or identifying ele- 
ment of the judgment, signifying that the con- 
cept which appears in the subject is the same, in 
whole or in part, as that in the predicate. It is 
this view of its exactest and most primitive and 
germinant import which best discloses to us its 
meaning and force in its divers applications and 
uses. A true copy, or generally a true represent- 
ative thus, is that which, in its content of the 
particulars to be copied or represented, is identi- 
cal with the original ; a true concept is one that 
is identical in its content with the object or the 
attribute which it respects ; a true proposition is 



THE TRUE. 259 

one that in its proper expression identifies the 
subject with its attribute- 
As object of the intelligence, the true accord- 
ingly denotes that which admits of being per- 
fectly thought or known ; in other words, that 
which may be known as subject identified with 
attribute- Thought and truth thus are exact 
correlatives — one subjective, the other objective. 
Used as concrete words they signify the same 
thing viewed in these two lights respectively : A 
thought is that which is known — a knowledge — 
through attributes ; a truth is that which may 
be known — is knowable — through attributes. A 
perfect truth — a perfect thought — is a perfect 
cognition, using this term in its twofold import 
as both objective and subjective, through at- 
tributes ; in other words, it is a cognition consti- 
tuted of a true concept as subject and a true 
concept as attribute properly identified or differ- 
enced in the copula. An imperfect truth or 
thought is one in which there is imperfection in 
one or other or all of these particular constit- 
uents. The false is the opposite of the true, and 
like that, it may be perfectly false or imperfectly 
false. These are the three several possible par- 
ticular forms under the general category of the 
true — the true, the imperfectly true, and the false. 
Each of these particular forms, even the posi- 
tively false, is proper object of the intelligence ; 
and together they make up the entire body of 



260 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

object for this function. The intelligence can in 
its legitimate action respect nothing else. 

§ 173. It follows from this exposition of the 
true and of thought that there must be, in every 
object which contains the true and can be 
thought, that which will admit of being attrib- 
uted. In other words, every such object must 
admit of being regarded as a subject having at- 
tributes. This is the first, most fundamental and 
comprehensive category of the true as object of 
thought. It corresponds to the first category of 
pure thought — identity. This latter is purely 
subjective, pertaining to the thinking faculty ; 
the former is purely objective, pertaining to the 
matter of the thinking act, that is, to the two 
terms, subject and attribute, as identified or 
differenced in the thinking act. 

This fundamental category of the true might 
appropriately be designated by the name attribn- 
tablencss, so that, as we can say under the cate- 
gory of pure thought, all cognition is compre- 
hended under identification, we can likewise 
say, all that is true is comprehended under what 
is attributable, that is, under what admits of the 
relation of subject and attribute. 

§ 174. If we return now to our type-form of a 
primitive thought — of a judgment — the orange is 
round, we observe that the attribute round is 
contained within the subject, the orange. But 
there are attributes which lie without the sub- 
ject. We may attribute to the orange that it is 



THE TRUE. 261 

in the hand ; that it is now before me ; that it is 
one of a number, and the like. Some attributes 
accordingly are intrinsic ; others, extrinsic to a 
subject. Obviously there can be no other attri- 
butes conceivable. They are the comprehensive 
forms of the true as modified in respect to attri- 
bute. All attributes are accordingly distinguished 
into two classes, one Intrinsic, the other Extrin- 
sic to the subject. 

Intrinsic Attributes are those which lie 
wholly within the subject and may be thought 
when that alone is presented to the mind ; as 
round, yellozv, szveet, juicy. 

Extrinsic Attributes are those which lie 
without the subject and are thought only when 
something besides the subject is presented to the 
mind ; as in the hand, present, one of a class. 

This division of attributes, it will be seen, is in 
exact correspondence with the obvious indica- 
tions of the second category of pure thought 
named, that of Quantity, or more particularly 
that of Whole and Part. Intrinsic attributes 
belong to the object regarded as a whole by it- 
self irrespectively of all other objects. Extrinsic 
attributes belong to the object as a part in relation 
to the whole or to the other parts. It will often 
be very helpful in study to bear in mind this im- 
portant ground of distinction between the two 
most generic divisions of attributes. Intrinsic 
attributes ever respect the object as a whole in 
relation to its parts ; Extrinsic attributes respect 



262 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

the object as a part. This relationship of a part 
is thus twofold — to the whole and to other parts. 

§ 175. Intrinsic Attributes are also denom- 
inated Properties. They consist of two species : 
Actions and Qualities. 

Inasmuch as an object can be known to us 
only as it acts in some way upon us, only as act- 
ive or as impressing, all attributes, even intrinsic 
attributes, strictly speaking, have this property of 
action in a certain sense attaching to it. But 
in the analyzing power of thought, this charac- 
teristic may be dropped from view and so an 
attribute be regarded simply in its own special 
nature without positive relation to other objects. 
If, however, retaining a tinge from its primitive 
source, while yet not thought as actually affecting 
or impressing other objects, it admits of the des- 
ignation as a property of action. If dropping 
this tinge of origin entirely, the property becomes 
one of mere quality. 

We may define properties of action as those 
properties which express the active character of 
the subject to which they belong without, how- 
ever, necessary intimation of the object to which 
they relate, as nutritious, gravitating. Proper- 
ties of quality drop this suggestion of action and 
of object, as round, Jieavy. 

Attributes of quality are generally and nor- 
mally expressed by grammatical adjectives; 
those of action are properly expressed by gram- 
matical verbs combining the copula, and by par- 



THE TRUE. 263 

ticiples which by themselves do not combine the 
copula with the attribute. 

Intrinsic Attributes or Properties, moreover, 
are distinguished into the two species of Essen- 
tial and Accidental ; the former being necessary 
to the being of the subject, the latter not thus 
necessary. Round, yellow, or at least some at- 
tributes of figure and of color, are essential to 
the orange ; specked, decaying, are not thus essen- 
tial. 

§ 176. Extrinsic Attributes, also denominated 
attributes of Relation, are distributed into the 
two species of attributes of Relation Proper and 
attributes of Condition. 

Larger than the others, nearer, are attributes of 
relation proper ; presetit, now, are attributes of 
condition. 

To avoid the cumbrousness of the expression — 
attributableness — we may with propriety now des- 
ignate this first class of attributes of the true as 
the category of properties and relations. 

§ 177. Category of substance and cause. — 
In the same way as we recognize in every in- 
stance of thought the category of attributableness 
embracing the two grand classes of attributes — 
properties and relations, — we also recognize, by 
turning our view to the subject or first term of the 
judgment, the general attribute that belongs to 
every object of thought, of its being a subject. 
The judgment, the orange is round, presents to 






264 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

our intuition this attribute of its having a subject 
to which something is attributed. 

Inasmuch now as any subject in thought may 
have an attribute either in the form of quality or 
of action, subjects are in this relation distinguished 
into two distinct classes: (1) Substances which 
imply that as subjects they take attributes of 
quality ; and (2) Causes, which imply attributes 
of action. 

This general category of substance and cause 
accordingly embraces the two subordinate cate- 
gories, that of substance and that of cause. By 
some writers these categories, with perhaps more 
propriety but with a little more clumsiness, have 
been named substantiality and causality. 

They have manifold modifications all embraced 
under the general category. 

If we assume merely the fact of a judgment, 
no matter how it came to be, whether occasioned 
by the presence of some external object affect- 
ing our sensual organism, or by some inner con- 
dition of our bodies, or even by a direct touch 
of the creative spirit moving on our spiritual nat- 
ure directly and through no sensuous medium, 
— if we assume simply the experience of a judg- 
ment, this category of substance and cause neces- 
sarily appears. As certainly as there is a sub- 
ject in every judgment, just as certainly is there 
this characteristic belonging to every object of 
thought, that it admits of being thought as a 
subject and either as substance or cause. 



THE TRUE. 265 

It is to be observed that the terms substance 
and cause suffer a modification of meaning as ap- 
plied to realities external to thought somewhat 
differing from that which they bear in their full- 
est import as applied to the relations of thought 
itself. In the world of reality, in nature as com- 
monly spoken of, there is not, so far as we can 
perceive, any such necessity as attaches directly 
to every legitimate movement of thought. As 
we have noticed, every such movement of 
thought must give necessary results so far as the 
thinking is concerned, since otherwise thought 
would contradict itself, would be no more 
thought ; while on the other hand, all relation- 
ships in the world of reality we must, until at 
last we learn from other sources than simple ob- 
servation, regard as not having necessarily in 
themselves this character of necessity ; that is, 
we must in our thought regard them as contin- 
gent. In other words, as they are presented to 
our senses, they nowhere exhibit to us this char- 
acteristic of necessity. 

In respect to substance philosophic thought has 
introduced the term substratum to mark its use 
in the strict sense required by thought, as denot- 
ing what there is in a thing distinct from its at- 
tributes and as that in which the attributes inhere, 
or that which binds them together into one and 
constitutes them into a thing. But to suppose 
the reality of such a substratum distinct from at- 
tributes is now generally recognized as preposter- 



266 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

ous. The true view has been given in our expo- 
sition of the nature of thought. The relation of 
substance and attribute is the initiative product 
of thought in the exercise of its proper function 
of identifying. This relation thus created by 
thought itself, it is seen at once, must partake of 
the necessities of thought. But there is in the 
real world no such substance — no substratum — 
as there is no logical subject. None has ever 
been presented through the sense to thought ; 
and it is forbidden to thought to add any new 
attribute to its object ; it can only identify or 
difference what is given to it ; and in order to 
this it must itself first resolve this object 
given it — this datum — into subject and attribute. 
There are in nature substances regarded as 
things which can be thought under the form of 
identification of subject and attribute, into which 
the single object is resolved in the analysis of 
thought ; but subject and attribute never appear 
as subsisting separately in nature, or as separate 
constituents in any existing combination held 
together by some bond of necessity. No such 
bond is discernible by our senses. In like man- 
ner it may be shown that there is no such charac- 
ter of necessity, in the strictest sense, attaching 
to things as active in the external world — to the 
sequences or successions of nature. No such 
feature is presented to the sense; and thought 
cannot be allowed to impart to a reality a charac- 
ter which is in no way revealed to the sense. 



THE TRUE. 267 

The sense apprehends power in the external 
world, but power in action only, that is, change ; 
its keenest vision can discern no real necessity 
connecting the action of the power with some 
definite result — connecting the beginning of the 
change with some determinate end. It is simple 
onflow, simple succession or sequence, simple 
power moving on, simple reality in perpetual 
change, that is revealed to us. Aside from this 
onflow of active being, no bond holding together 
the sequences is discernible. Our thought enters 
this onflow and separates it into parts crosswise 
and lengthwise — across the stream and along the 
stream, in wider or narrower belts ; and taking 
up such a portion as suits its purpose, and re- 
garding it as one, separates the upstream section 
from the lower one, and pronounces the upper 
to be the cause of the latter, recognizing a con- 
tinuity that is absolutely necessary in its appre- 
hension of the whole as one. It has resolved 
that which in nature is one whole into a dual of 
parts — a beginning part and a resulting part. 
Here arises the necessity which is recognized 
between cause and effect — a necessity which ex- 
ists between the parts of the same whole — a 
necessity, strictly speaking, attaching to thought, 
not to object. 

The general observation is pertinent here that 
the furtive transference of the qualities of proper 
thought to its object is a fruitful source of con- 
fusion and error in philosophical discussion. The 



268 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

doctrine of the Realists, thus, who supposed that 
genus and species must be real things because we 
think in the use of general terms, and that there 
must be a general man because we think of man 
as a genus in distinction from a man as an indi- 
vidual, originated in this transference. Substance 
and cause are terms of thought. As such they 
have properties that cannot legitimately be at- 
tributed to real things. 

The teaching of Hamilton, it may be added, 
that there is " an absolute tautology between the 
effect and its causes," or that " causes and effects 
are tautological/' is partial and misleading, as it 
leaves out the purely thought character of the 
causal judgment or principle of causality and can 
receive no interpretation except as touching 
merely things as observed and exterior to 
thought. That of Kant, on the other hand, 
which makes the notion of cause to " be based 
completely a priori in the understanding," is 
equally defective. Both cause and effect are 
comprised in the notion of causation or change 
which in the simple apprehension is single and in 
reality indivisible ; and it is change in nature, in 
the real world, mental or physical, which is neces- 
sarily pre-supposed as the condition of our having 
the notion of cause. Reflective thought, from 
its very nature, without having any quiver al- 
ready at its back filled with arrowy categories, of 
itself and by reason of its own inherent energy, 
seizing this apprehension — the change as observed 



THE l^RUE. 269 

— recognizes in it at once a beginning and an end- 
ing, resolves the apprehended single into a dual, 
one term of which is cause and the other is effect. 
The two correlates are thus the pure offspring of 
thought; they are the two complementary parts 
of one thought-whole ; and accordingly they 
participate in the character of necessity that 
attaches to all legitimate thought. 

Such is the genesis of this notion of causality, 
the offspring of thought from observed fact ; 
conditioned on experience, but not given in 
experience ; generated from thought, but not 
pre-existing before actual thinking. 

The true, as object, accordingly possesses in 
its essential nature the characteristic of becoming 
attributable when it comes into our thought, and 
as such admits the generic classification indi- 
cated by the fundamental division of intrinsic 
attributes or properties into qualities and actions, 
viz. : into (1) the true of substance and (2) the 
true of cause. 

§ 178. The true, as object, is, however, but a 
part of what may be object to our experience. 
Side by side with it as exact co-ordinates and 
complementaries, are, as has been stated, the 
beautiful and the good addressing respectively 
the sensibility and the will, the three together 
constituting a totality of object to mental expe- 
rience. The three have been very properly 
styled the three fundamental ideas, as every 
modification of mental experience must be an 



270 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

affection from an object addressing us as true, or 
beautiful, or good. As the mind is conscious of 
all its affections, it may know the true, the beau- 
tiful, and the good in their respective natures and 
effects. They all partake of the nature of reality, 
inasmuch as they all address us from without the 
thought and make each its own impress. They 
are accordingly all expressions or addresses of 
power, of activity. They are rightly called 
causes by Aristotle, being respectively the mate- 
rial, formal, and final in his enumeration of 
causes. The true respecting each as to its nature, 
its modifications, its effects, is object to the in- 
telligence. 

We know thus the true ; we know or may 
know the fact that we know ; we know or may 
know also what it is to know. It is no pleo- 
nasm to say that we know that we know. Our 
very knowing, our knowledge, as well as our feel- 
ing, or our willing, is object to our consciousness. 
We recognize this when we speak of character- 
istics that mark our knowledge ; as when we say, 
we know imperfectly ; we know by observation ; 
we know mathematical truths. We must of course 
know that we have the knowledge which we thus 
characterize. Logical science is the science of 
knowledge, specifically determined in its scope 
and method from the product or result of know- 
ing, rather than from the faculty — the intelligence 
— on the one hand, and from the object — the true 
— on the other. Its province is the exposition of 



THE TRUE. 271 

the nature, laws, and forms of knowledge or 
thought as a product or result. 

We know also the beautiful ; we know that we 
feel ; and to a good degree how we feel ; we 
know that different objects affect us differently. 
The beautiful ^-form — is object to our intelligence 
as a true ; as that which may be known. JEs- 
thetic science is the science of the beautiful, de- 
termined in its scope and method from the ex- 
perience or product rather than from the capacity 
or faculty, that is, the sensibility and the imagi- 
nation, the two-sided function of form. Its prov- 
ince is the exposition of the nature, laws, and 
forms of beauty in nature and art. 

So, too, we know the good ; that it offers itself 
to us to be chosen ; that it is sometimes, in fact, 
taken as object in our actual choice. We know 
that we choose, what we choose, how we choose ; 
the good as a true is object to our intelligence ; 
it may be known. Ethical science is the science 
of free choice, determined from the product 
rather than from the faculty or the object. Its 
province is the exposition of the nature, laws, 
and forms of duty or right choice. 

§ 179. That our experience of the true as well 
as of the beautiful and the good, is a true expe- 
rience, — that in other words this experience is a 
legitimate response to the object and is its proper 
effect on the mind, is a truth that will be ques- 
tioned by none but the most unreasonable skeptic 
or agnostic. No disproof is possible ; the most 



272 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

that the skeptic can do is to question the suffi- 
ciency of the positive proofs of the truth. These 
proofs are, first, that the tendency or propensity 
native to the mind toward the experience of 
these ideas as objects presented to it — toward 
the experience of truth, of beauty, and of right, 
is presumptive proof that the capacity or faculty 
and the object are one for the other, and that the 
meeting or interaction between them is normal 
and valid. Another proof is to be found in that 
peculiar pleasure and satisfaction which follows 
the right exercise of our respective functions on 
their several objects. We know the exercises to be 
genuine, normal, legitimate, by this test or sign. 
It is evidence far from being absolutely conclu- 
sive : it is presumptive, however, and may be deci- 
sive. A further proof which will serve as con- 
firmation of these presumptive tests or proofs, is 
to be found in the universal accord between par- 
ticular truths, attained it may be in many differ- 
ent ways and by many different minds, in differ- 
ent circumstances and relations. So universal is 
the acceptance of this fact — that all truth is in 
harmony, each part with every other — that if any 
supposed truth is found to be in conflict with 
another it is concluded at once that there must 
be error somewhere. The true can never be in 
conflict with the true. This universal experience 
is the exact counterpart to the fourth funda- 
mental law of thought in our enumeration — the 
law of contradiction. The experiences of the 



THE TRUE. 273 

true by men, the acceptances of what is true by 
them, are, as a general law, in accord ; the suppos- 
able exceptions are few and, in fact, to a large 
extent at least, only apparent ; they do not mate- 
rially detract from the absoluteness of the gen- 
eral law. Such accord is not supposable unless 
these experiences were a true lesponse to their 
objects. Skepticism here is so irrational that it 
seems well-nigh needless to notice it. 

§ 180. Still further, the true as object comes to 
us in two distinguishable ways ; in one way, 
freely and spontaneously as it were, addressing 
i|s rather as recipients; in another way, as fruit 
of our endeavor or search — as result of our solici- 
tation and inquiry. It will be serviceable in our 
study of the true as object to regard it under 
these two aspects or relations, separately and in 
different chapters; — first, the true as received ; 
and, secondly, the true as produced. 



18 



CHAPTER IX. 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 



§ 1 8 1. It is certain that many of the truths 
which we hold, constituting- a large share of our 
stock of knowledge, have come into our minds 
without our search or solicitation. Objects have 
presented themselves as things to be known to 
our minds, and they have been accepted. We 
have recognized a native element in the mind 
which we have called curiosity, a pure spontaneous 
propensity or craving for knowledge, combin- 
ing easily on occasion with a certain voluntari- 
ness and so becoming what has been distinguished 
as attention. § § 1 69-1 71. In this state of craving 
receptivity the true has been presented and been 
accepted. Such acceptance is properly denom- 
inated faitJi. The best definition of faith, ac- 
cordingly, because the simplest and most com- 
prehensive as well as most consonant with its 
etymology and use in language, is acceptance by 
the mind of the true on its own address or presenta- 
tion. It is the free meeting of the knowing fac- 
ulty with its object — the true. Faith is a form of 
knowledge because it respects the true ; and the 
true, as we have seen, involves the identification 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 275 

of subject with attribute which is knowledge. 
But in faith the true is received or known in its 
own unassisted light. In faith, thus, the true is 
received on the testimony of the natural bearers 
of it to the mind, as they have access to it in the 
constituted interaction between mind and its 
objects. We believe our senses ; we believe our 
consciousness ; we believe what others tell us ; 
we believe the indications of the natural world ; 
we accept what they report to us on their bare 
testimony. 

§ 182. As contradistinguished from knowledge 
generally, faith thus means acceptance of the 
true on the unaccredited presentation of itself 
to the mind. The terms — faith and knowledge 
— are loosely used, often interchangeably. But 
faith properly points to a primitive, underived 
knowledge that is unattested except as coming 
through natural organs of knowledge, uncon- 
firmed, undemonstrated. Knowledge necessarily 
begins in faith, in simple acceptance of what is 
given it. This is absolutely true of the first act 
of knowledge ; it is substantially true of the first 
acquisitions subsequently made in specific de- 
partments of truth. Faith is at the very founda- 
tion of knowledge. It is the characteristic spirit 
of the great promoters of human knowledge. 
Their maxim has been: ''Believe that you may 
know." Believe the senses; believe what others 
say ; believe the legitimate processes of knowl- 
edge. The spirit of doubt is hostile to truth. 



276 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

But this faith, requisite to the highest attainments 
in truth, is by no means with men an absolute 
faith. It is the faith which is exercised with im- 
perfect organs, by imperfect powers. It admits, 
rather calls for, confirmation. It loves light ; it 
seeks to be examined in light. All truth is har- 
monious. Each specific faith and knowledge is 
a member of an organic whole, and lives and 
strengthens with the life and vigor of the whole 
body of knowledge. If particular faiths cannot 
be harmonized with the great body of truth, if 
they conflict with other better established faiths, 
they are thereby so far proved to be illegitimate 
and empty. 

§ 183. The true as object of knowledge is di- 
visible into two grand departments as it addresses 
the knowing faculty directly or indirectly, that 
is, immediately from within the mind itself or 
mediately through the bodily sense. It is thus 
internal or supersensible and external or sensible. 

I. INTERNAL OR SUPERSENSIBLE TRUTH. 

§ 184. Internal truth is revealed directly to 
consciousness without the intervention of the 
bodily sense. It is the so-called intuitive truth 
— the truth of intuitions or internal perceptions. 
It is exactly commensurate, in fact it is exactly 
identical, with the body of revelations made to 
the mind by itself and other supersensible reali- 
ties. The mind, regarded as a receptivity of 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 277 

the true which is revealed in its own acts and 
affections, is simply self-sense. The sphere of 
intuition, as before stated, is exactly denned as 
the sphere of internal phenomena. It gives only 
presentative knowledge. 

§ 185. The true as object of conscious or inter- 
nal knowledge has been sometimes distinguished 
into that which respects the phenomena of mind, 
and that which respects the mind itself — the self. 
This distinction may be allowed in the legitimate 
analysis made by reflective thought for certain 
convenient purposes of study. But a most per- 
nicious fallacy has sometimes crept into philo- 
sophical speculation by confounding this legiti- 
mate thought-analysis with a real separation in the 
concrete object ; — the self has been regarded as 
if it could have a separate subsistence from its 
phenomena — from its acts and affections — from 
its essential attributes. The error we have else- 
where indicated, but the grand truth cannot be 
too distinctly before the view, that the real self 
is none other than its active nature revealed spe- 
cifically in its exercises and affections — in its phe- 
nomena — in its attributes. The self is in every 
act of knowing, of imagining, of choosing. It is 
the grossest of absurdities to suppose an attri- 
bute really separable from the substance to which 
it belongs. We may for purposes of distinct in- 
vestigation abstract in our thought any one at- 
tribute from the complement of attributes in an 
object ; but the complement of attributes makes 



278 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

up or constitutes the concrete object, and is 
identical with it ; and no one attribute can be 
completely viewed except as co-ordinated with 
the rest, and never but as a part of the substance 
which ever is, so far and to that extent, the same 
as the particular attribute. 

The whole field of mental experience is here 
presented as the true to be known — the self, the 
mind, the spirit, the soul — in its diversified acts 
and affections, in innumerable modifications, like 
the hues of light blending in indefinable tints 
and shades, and only in a vague way distinguish- 
able in its feeling, knowing, willing experiences 
according as one or another makes itself more 
prominent, really or apparently, to our abstrac- 
tive contemplation ; as growing, expanding, 
strengthening, maturing; as turned in upon itself 
in its restless activity or out upon the world 
around it, suffering impression alike from within 
and from without ; — a field, shut up in a certain 
sense within very narrow inclosures, a speck or 
spark in the boundlessness of space and time, 
yet unfathomable in its depths of truth for the 
explorer, inexhaustible in the riches of its con- 
tent. 

§ 1 86. The true we have found to be that 
which can be thought or known under an attri- 
bute. The mere self-sense, the mere intuition of 
the self in any of its manifestations, does not give 
truth in its completed, its true, mature, and per- 
fect form. We perceive or intuit a feeling or a 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 279 

thought of whatever kind, and we press on to 
think it — to recognize and affirm some attribute 
belonging to it. These attributes are of course 
as various as the modifications of the mind itself. 
But there is one attribute which is discoverable 
and recognizable in every case of an intuition of 
a mental act or affection. It is the attribute of 
reality — of existence. We do not in every case 
of an intuition actually assert this attribute ; we 
may not be distinctly conscious of it, just as we 
are sometimes not conscious of one or another 
attribute undoubtedly belonging to an object we 
may be perceiving. It may yet be there and it 
may be possible for us ever to recognize it. A 
thought, a thinking act, which we actually expe- 
rience and which we perceive or intuit is real, if 
anything is real. It is not imaginary ; for we 
are conscious that we do not impose it upon our- 
selves. We recognize it to be real as we recognize 
the solid earth on which we tread, to be real. 
There is no attribute that we are more sure to 
recognize, if we try. We cannot help, indeed, as- 
serting this act of thought to be real if our thought 
is turned that way. We assert the thought 
to be real as naturally and as surely as we assert 
it to be legitimate, or painful, or suggestive, or 
as having any other attribute belonging to it. 
This attribute o f reality, existence, pertains to 
every object of an intuition, every feeling, 
thought, purpose. It is the universal attribute of 
intuitive objects, which of itself, even if abstracted 



2So THE INTELLIGENCE. 

from every other specific attribute characterizing a 
mental act or affection, enables us to think it ; 
which, in other words, makes such an act or affec- 
tion a veritable true to us. Every intuition is 
real ; it is a real mind putting forth a real exer- 
tion. 

§ 187. It is of the first importance to all philo- 
sophical speculation to hold this attribute of real- 
ity or existence entirely distinct from the logical 
copula or the merely assertive element in a 
thought. This certainly very gross error, and, 
because related to our most fundamental studies 
of mind, this very pernicious error, is to be de- 
tected in the speculations of some great thinkers. 
It has led them into grievous mistakes and con- 
fusions. As is common in all discourse about 
abstract and spiritual objects, terms used in de- 
noting them have been borrowed from the lan- 
guage proper to more sensible or outward things. 
The is of the logical copula is a borrowed use of 
the is used of external objects denoting being or 
existence — external reality. As expressing the 
copula in a judgment, it expresses simply the 
reality or existence of the judgment. It is ob- 
vious fallacy to apply it when thus used to the 
terms of the judgment. When I say " the centaur 
is a human quadruped," I by no means intend to 
affirm the reality or existence of the centaur. I 
simply put forth the judgment as real, as existent, 
in affirming the centaur to be a human quadru- 
ped. The external reality of the centaur or of 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 281 

any human quadruped, is in no way affirmed or 
implied. In other words, the copula element, the 
affirmation of the judgment, never of itself neces- 
sarily involves the reality of either the subject or 
the attribute. We may correctly say even, "the 
centaur is imaginary — is unreal — non-existent," a 
proposition which is utterly absurd or contradic- 
tory, if the copula of the judgment properly im- 
plies the existence or reality of the terms of the 
judgment. Every judgment is real because a 
real act; but the object which the judgment re- 
spects may be imaginary ; it is often not real 
either as respects subject or attribute. 

We conclude, then, that reality or existence is 
an attribute that is to be discerned like any other 
attribute in order to be recognized as true. It is 
so actually discerned in the intuition of a mental 
act or affection. It is not an a priori idea — a 
native cognition, antecedent and conditional to 
all actual knowledge and mental experience. 
This is the merest assumption ; rather, it is 
utterly a mistake. The attribute of reality can- 
not be apart from the object to which it belongs. 
We cannot have the idea until we discern it in 
some real object. The real object must first be 
presented to our mind, or at least to some mind, 
to reveal the attribute. There is no occasion, 
no need for presupposing it as an idea laid up 
beforehand in some mysterious way to be used 
when some real object comes along in the way of 
our observation. Its genesis is obvious ; it rises 



282 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

in the mind like every other attribute, with the 
object, as the object reveals itself to us through 
the attribute and by it. We observe the attri- 
bute in the object and then give it its name. We 
observe the attribute of reality in an object pre- 
sented to us ; and then we name it : — we call it 
real. 

§ 1 88. It is a fitting place here to give a more 
explicit emphasis to the fundamental statement 
in the philosophy of the mind, that the human 
mind never knows, never has notions, ideas, prin- 
ciples, any specific forms of knowledge by what- 
ever name they may be called ; never perceives, 
never intuits, never has perceptions or intuitions; 
never has any knowledge, any truth ; except on 
the condition that the proper object of knowl- 
edge — the true — is presented to it and is accepted 
as such. The human mind begins its proper life 
by acting, and accordingly on an object which 
must of necessity be presented to it without any 
determination or selection of its own. It is, until 
this first putting forth of its active nature, if the 
expression may be allowed, an entirely void ac- 
tivity ; it has had no object, has put forth no 
act ; it cannot have any idea, any truth. Not- 
withstanding this seemingly unquestionable and 
salient fact of mind, there has manifested itself 
in philosophical speculation a disposition to sup- 
pose there must be some principles, truths, ideas, 
intuitions in the mind that belong to it as its in- 
born possession ; at least, that are held by it 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 283 

before or without any presentation of object. 
How can we, it is asked, have any notion of the 
universal, the necessary, the perfect, the absolute, 
the infinite, otherwise than as our very birth-right 
inheritance, as the needful capital in order to any 
acquisition. 

We have shown in the case of one and another 
of these supposed native cognitions, from time to 
time as our method encountered them, how they 
have had their genesis ; that they have arisen, 
like all other cognitions, whether laws, principles, 
or ideas of whatever character, on presentation of 
some appropriate object and are simply the re- 
sults of actual observation and subsequent reflec- 
tion. A number of these first truths, supposed to 
be antecedent and conditional to knowledge and 
to all mental experience, we have found to be 
simply attributes of thought — of a thinking act 
— learned by actual inspection. The familiar 
notion of existence or reality, one of these sup- 
posed a priori ideas, we have just examined in 
respect to its origin. There remain still others, 
some of which we have just named — the universal, 
the perfect, the absolute, the infinite. In the 
next chapter, the genesis of these, at least in 
part, as the universal and the others so far as im- 
porting merely negations, will be exhibited, as 
not at all the antecedent conditions of knowledge, 
but as simply the consequents or results of the 
normal action of the knowing faculty on the pres- 
entation of its object — the true. They are all 



2S4 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

attainments not pre -endowments. But we have 
advanced the proposition that all internal per- 
ceptions, all intuitions, all intuitive truth, come 
to be on the exertion of the faculty of knowing 
on the acts and affections of the mind itself, or 
on the immediate revelations to it of other 
supersensible realities, the sphere of intuition 
being exactly commensurate with this sphere of 
internal and supersensible phenomena, and it 
seems to be appropriate if not necessary here to 
substantiate this proposition, if possible, by a 
general demonstration from the very nature of 
the case, that there can be none of those supposed 
intuitions or ideas antecedent to experience or 
outside of it. 

If these a priori ideas exist and are really con- 
tents or forms of mental activity they must be 
either truths, that is, judgments that can be ex- 
pressed in propositions, or objects that must be 
either concretes, or thought-objects, that is, sub- 
jects or attributes. There are no other cogni- 
tions supposable. But there can be no judg- 
ment, certainly, until there is something presented 
to be judged ; the very term concrete implies an 
object external to the cognitive faculty to be 
known only on presentation to it in actual exper- 
ience ; and a subject cannot be without attribute 
nor attribute without subject, and neither subject 
nor attribute can be, except as they arise from the 
resolving, by the mind of some object presented 
to it in the legitimate and ordinary exercise of its 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 285 

function of thought. In a word, a cognition in 
the human mind can exist in it only in the exer- 
cise of the knowing faculty on its object being pre- 
sented to it. We conclude, then, that there are 
no internal ideas or notions that are not positive 
intuitions ; that are not the normal products of 
the exertions of the knowing faculty on its appro- 
priate object — the true — as revealed in acts or 
affections of the soul, in feeling, thinking, or will- 
ing. The simplicity of this teaching commends 
its truth and its importance to sound philosophy, 
since the fundamental is ever the simple. The 
doctrine of a priori cognitions is a gratuitous 
assumption ; having no ground but that of its 
serving as a support for weak theory, and wholly 
needless in the interest of truth, since the genesis 
of every such so-styled cognition can be traced 
in the ordinary method of knowledge. The ideas 
of existence or the real, of the true, the beauti- 
ful, the good, are given, as we have seen, in the 
presentation of the objects to which they belong 
as attributes. The idea of identity, whether as 
full sameness or partial likeness, and the ideas of 
quantity and of modality, we have found to be 
but attributes discernible in any instance of 
thought. The idea of the perfect, of the su- 
preme, and the like are obviously but modifica- 
tions of some one or other of these categories of 
thought. The ideas of the infinite, the absolute, 
the unconditioned, aie, all of them, of the nega- 
tive class of attributes, being in their proper im- 



2 S6 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

port respectively the non-finite, the non-related, 
the non-conditioned. By the law of disjunction 
the propositions: A is finite or is not infinite ; is 
relative or is not relative ; is conditioned or is not 
conditioned, are necessarily true. It does not fol- 
low, however, from this that the propositions: A 
is finite or infinite, is relative or irrelative, is con- 
ditioned or unconditioned, are true, any more than 
that from the proposition: A stone is vertebrate or 
is not vertebrate, it follows that a stone is a verte- 
brate or an invertebrate. 

The idea of the universal, as will be seen in 
the next chapter, arises in the way of the estab- 
lished principles of thought as a modification of 
the category of quantity — of extensive quantity ; 
it is the simple correlate of part. As applied to 
experience, the term universal denotes the aggre- 
gate of what has been attained or is attainable 
by human thought. The notion of the universal, 
of necessity must start from the single or 
individual. As observation or reflection extends, 
the number is increased, and the universality be- 
comes larger and extends till the limit is reached. 
A law or a principle is universal when it ex- 
tends to all that is known or can be known — when 
it applies to all objects known or possible to be 
known. The idea of a universality beyond all 
this aggregate of cognizable things and attributes, 
existing as an independent principle ready to 
step forth on occasion and embrace newly pre- 
sented objects, is not only gratuitous and needless, 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 287 

but is actually preposterous, violating the fixed 
principles of sound thinking. As elsewhere 
shown the notion of a whole, whether a universal, 
as in extensive quantity, or a total, as in compre- 
hensive quantity, in contradistinction from its 
correlate — a part — in logical exactness excludes 
the attribute of boundedness or limitation. A 
part is from its very nature, bounded ; a whole, 
as whole, cannot be. 

We have thus disposed of the most prominent 
of these so-called a priori ideas or native cogni- 
tions which have played so large and so fallacious 
a part in philosophical speculation. So far as 
held to exist in the human mind before all ex- 
perience, they cannot be proper intuitions, since 
these always imply objects actually presented 
and respect only what is actually discerned in 
such presented objects as actually belonging to 
them. As activities, intuitions imply objects; 
and these objects are simply and solely' the 
mind's own acts or affections in actual ex- 
perience. 

§ 189. The category of reality, which is at- 
tained by observation of some concrete being, as 
of self in some specific act or affection, or, it may 
be, of some external object introduced to the mind 
through the bodily sense, embraces manifold 
categories or classes of attributes, constituted on 
different grounds or principles. One grand class, 
standing by itself, is that which comprises the 
true, the beautiful, and the good. These we have 



2SS THE INTELLIGENCE. 

recognized as exactly corresponding with the 
respective mental functions, essence, form, and 
end, according to the Aristotelian enumeration of 
causes, and with the faculties of intelligence, 
imagination, and will. There are no other attri- 
butes of this order ; that is, none others that are 
determined by this principle of division. 

Everything that is real, accordingly, is true, is 
beautiful, and is good ; that is, has an essence, 
has form, has an end. We may abstract either 
attribute for exclusive inspection or study; a 
real object may present itself more prominently 
or more characteristically in one attribute than 
in another; but they all must necessarily exist 
more or less in every real thing. 

Conversely, all beauty, all truth, and all good- 
ness, so far as they enter into our experience, 
come under the category of reality ; they are 
each ever and necessarily real. As already 
stated, even the fictions of art are, with their un- 
real subjects, yet themselves as fictions, real, be- 
ing the actual products of a real imagination. 

This category embraces, of course, all the 
specific manifestations of mind in feeling, 
thought, and purpose. They all partake of the 
reality of the mind itself. The essential attri- 
butes of an object being, so far as they go, iden- 
tical with the object to which they belong, are 
real like that ; the reality in the concrete must 
ever be regarded as extending to both subject 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 289 

and attribute whenever thought has so resolved 
it into these two logical correlates. 

SUPERSENSIBLE REALITY. 

§ 190. Whether this category of reality can 
fairly be held to embrace the essential attributes 
of time and space so that we should regard them 
as properly real things, has been one of the most 
profound and perplexing questions of philosophy. 
That the idea exists, or, in other words, that we 
actually have the idea in our minds of time and 
also the idea of space, whatever may be true of 
the objects themselves, is assumed by all — is con- 
troverted by none. Of the nature and genesis of 
those ideas, three leading theories have been pro- 
posed. One is that of Kant — that these terms 
denote mere a priori forms t>r modes of our sense 
which are wholly subjective, that is, are in our 
minds, and do not at all pertain to the objects of 
our knowledge. A second theory is, that they 
are apriori, that is, they exist in the mind before 
any object that is viewed in relation to time or 
space, and are to be regarded as " native cogni- 
tions." The groundlessness as well as the need- 
lessness to any true science of mind of each of 
these theories alike have already, it would seem, 
been abundantly shown. They are mere assump- 
tions, taken up only to support certain theories, 
or because, perhaps, no other account seemed 
within reach of the human mind. A third view 
19 



290 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

of space and time regards them as real and as 
presented to the mind in a way analogous to that 
of all external objects that are known, through 
presentation to the mind by some attribute. 

§ 191. Time is thus known or may be known 
on the occasion of any action, whether of the 
mind itself or of external reality, observed by it. 
Every action reveals as a necessary concomitant 
the attribute of duration. This attribute is not 
of the essence of the action itself. No analysis 
or inspection of that can detect it. From the 
action — from the mind acting or from the exter- 
nal body moving — may be abstracted every attri- 
bute that enters into the action itself and consti- 
tutes it, leaving an absolute zero so far as the 
essence of the action is concerned, while yet the 
abstraction may bring away no such attribute as 
duration. Nevertheless this attribute came into 
the mind as inseparably attached to the action. 
The simple fact is, that the action is set in this 
necessary relationship of time as duration, as the 
sun is set in the sky. If after an experience of 
the sun we abstract every essential attribute of 
the sun — color, figure, gravity — and thus think 
away the entire sun itself, there will still remain 
the sky in which the sun is set in real relationship. 
Just so, as just observed, we may abstract every 
intrinsic and constituent attribute of an action or 
of a motion, that is, of an active or moving 
object, as it has come into our experience, and 
still there will remain the relative attribute of 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 291 

duration. For every action must be regarded as 
having extrinsic as well as intrinsic attributes, 
which, although not essential as entering into its 
essence, are equally indispensable as conditions 
of its existence, since any part is conditioned on 
the existence of other parts. Here comes into 
play the quantitative relationship of part — of part 
to the whole. The part is necessarily in its 
whole. Our minds, all its activities, are parts of 
a whole of reality ; and every manifestation of 
mind, every action, by the necessities of thought 
itself, brings in this whole of reality, not in its full 
comprehension indeed, yet truly, just as the sun 
necessarily brings with itself into an apprehension 
the sky in which it is set, although not in its 
absolute wholeness or just as a severed limb 
implies the body of which it was an organic part. 
Time as the whole of duration, is revealed to us 
thus through this attribute of condition on the 
occasion of any specific action. It is revealed to 
us as real. It certainly is not an original product 
of the imagination, for imagination cannot create 
out of nothing ; and it creates only forms out of its 
own materials already acquired. It is not a prod- 
uct of thought, for such a work is entirely beyond 
the function of thought, which creates only 
thoughts of what is given to it, adding nothing. 
It is real, because it is given to the mind from 
without its own proper action, truly impressing it 
and determining a new state or mode of the 
mind's activity. We have an exact analogy in 



292 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

geological science. The mastodon is revealed to 
us not as a whole, for the animal is long since 
extinct. It is revealed to us as a real existence, 
through a part — a particular bone. This part, by 
logical necessity, compels us to infer the exist- 
ence of the whole animal of which it must have 
been a part. The mastodon is revealed to us 
thus as a real, through the part which logically 
implies the whole. Just so, every action or 
motion experienced by the mind reveals itself as 
continuing, as a duration ; and this continuing or 
duration is given to us as a part which implies its 
corresponding whole — the whole of time. 

The idea of time accordingly has in a certain 
sense the character of necessity ; — a necessity 
lying not in essence but in relation. When we 
experience an action or a motion, time as the 
condition necessarily appears, as the mastodon 
appears to the thought of the naturalist on the 
perception of a bone. The supposition of such 
experience involves the presence of time under 
the necessities of thought by which the part 
implies the whole to which it belongs. Every 
action or motion has the relative attribute of 
duration ; and duration is a particular property of 
time, and so implies it. 

The idea of time is universal as well as neces- 
sary, as all men have experience of some action 
or motion. It is, moreover, self-evident in the 
sense that, given the experience, time reveals 
itself in its attribute of continuous duration. It 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 293 

is a proper object of intuition, not of perception 
proper ; for it is supersensible in its nature. Time 
touches no bodily sense. The sense decays, the 
body passes away, while time endures. 

Duration is the more interior and essential 
attribute of time ; but this duration itself has the 
attribute of continuous succession. But time as 
a real entity has another important attribute. 
Experience brings to us no beginning to time. 
Particular actions begin ; but they each appear to 
us as succeeding parts to a pre-existing move- 
ment ; we can discover no absolute beginning of 
motion. Every particular motion has a preced- 
ing; and, so far as our experience goes and up to 
the present moment, each has had its succeeding 
motion. The duration of any particular action 
or motion is thus a part of a larger duration 
necessarily implying a whole of which it is a part. 
Time is the whole of these parts, of these partic- 
ular durations. Conceived thus as a whole, time 
does not come under the category of bound or 
limit, or outer relation. It is as absurd to apply 
this attribute to time as a whole, as to apply the 
category of vertebrateness to stones, or of gravity 
to spirit ; for the very idea of a whole precludes 
all consideration of outward relation as pertinent 
to it, and of course all consideration of bound or 
limit or dependence. It is as preposterous to 
inquire whether time as a whole is finite or 
infinite, as to inquire whether a stone is a verte- 
brate or an invertebrate or whether spirit is 



2<) \ THE INTELLIGENCE. 

heavy or light. It is logically legitimate under 
the law of disjunction to affirm that time is finite 
or it is not finite ; but a sound logic distinguishes 
this widely from the disjunctive proposition time 
is finite or infinite. Only in the looseness of 
popular speech can we speak of time conceived 
as a whole as infinite ; and in popular discourse 
the language is perhaps allowable. But specula- 
tion which starts with the assumption of time as 
a whole and then treats it under the category of 
limitation, is at once involved in the mist of 
bewildering and misleading fallacy. Duration 
may be logically considered as a part of time and 
may therefore be logically considered under the 
category of bound or limitation. The question 
is logically proper: is this or that duration finite 
or infinite. But wholeness excludes all notion of 
limit or outer relationship. If we have thought of 
an object as a whole, as, suppose, of an orange hav- 
ing as parts its rind and pulp, we may proceed to 
think of it as a part, as, for instance, of a larger 
number, and then it may be conceived of as 
finite or limited. But so long as it is thought 
only as a whole, it is not thought at all as thus 
finite ; so far as the thought regards it as a 
whole the attribute of limitedness is excluded, 
for the simple reason that all outer relationship 
is excluded from the notion of a whole. 

§ 192. The genesis of the idea of space is in 
perfect analogy to the genesis of the idea of time. 
The experience of any physical body brings into 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 295 

our minds, besides its special essential attributes 
or its proper qualities, the attribute of position — 
of a here and there ; of place. This attribute of 
position comes by a natural association into this 
experience of a physical body, universally. It is 
the natural setting of such a body, but is not of 
its essence. It is an attribute of condition, of re- 
lation in the larger -sense. Abstract from our 
notion of a physical body all its essential attri- 
butes, still the notion of its attribute as being 
liere or there — of having position — remains. It is 
of the constitution of things that this association 
of body with position should exist in our experi- 
ence. It is not ours to determine why, or how, or 
wherefore. We have to deal only with the fact. 
The fact is that position is given to us ever and in- 
variably with our experience of a physical body. 
We do not say that in the guarded language of 
philosophical discussion, this association must be 
pronounced to be one of necessity in nature, for 
nature does not testify such necessity to our 
thought. But the experience of the association 
is universal ; so universal that common speech 
without much liability to error speaks of it as 
necessary. But position is a part of a containing 
whole — a whole of space. In our experience of 
physical body, accordingly, space as whole reveals 
itself to us through its part of position or of a 
here and there. The fallacy in the Berkeleian rea- 
soning, that we can have no knowledge of space as 
a real, because it cannot be a legitimate intellect- 



296 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

ual notion nor yet is it perceived by any of our 
senses, is easily exposed. The notion of space is 
not attributable in its ultimate ground to the ex- 
clusive action of either intellect or perceptive 
sense, but to both combined. There is sense- 
perception first, as of some object ; there is then 
the intellectual inference from this, as a part to 
the existence of space as a whole, through the 
relative attribute of condition — position or place 
— as we perceive the bone of the mastodon and 
then infer the whole animal of which it is a part. 
The notion of space as a necessary idea comes in 
precisely as the notion of the existence of the 
mastodon becomes necessary on the condition of 
the existence of the bone. The existence of the 
part implies by the necessities of thought the ex- 
istence of the whole. But the part, the bone, 
must first be given to us in experience, before we 
can conclude to the existence of the whole of the 
mastodon. And this is a matter of contingency; 
we cannot beforehand assume the existence of 
the bone before it is presented to us. So posi- 
tion, the here or there, is matter of experience ; 
it is so far contingent. But position is given to 
us as a part ; and as the part necessarily brings 
into our thought the whole, position, or particu- 
larly extension, necessarily involves its whole — 
of unlimited extension or space. Given the 
fact of position, as part and so limited, the fact 
of space as whole and so not limited, is an infer- 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 297 

ence that partakes of the necessitous nature of 
perfect thought. 

Position as part of space has as its essential at- 
tribute that of continuous extension. This ex- 
tension is in three directions. In other words, 
real things conceived as particular substances and 
physical bodies are of three dimensions: length, 
breadth, and thickness. A mathematical point 
has no dimensions of any kind ; it is without di- 
mensions. But a point produced — extended — it 
is loosely said, forms a line which has one single 
dimension. A line produced forms a surface 
which has two dimensions. A surface produced 
forms a solid, which has three dimensions, and here 
we find the limit in real being. 

Space conceived as a whole cannot be consid- 
ered under the category of limit or outer relation. 
Position, as part, is limited, as one part is 
bounded by other parts of the same whole. It is 
logically legitimate to inquire of the extent of a 
position or place as more or less limited ; not of 
space while it is conceived as a whole. Space is 
not finite, is not limited ; only in the looseness of 
popular speech can we say it is infinite. 

SYNOPSIS OF FUNDAMENTAL CATEGORIES. 

§ 193. It may be serviceable to present here a 
formulated statement of those most fundamental 
categories or classes of attributes which are re- 
vealed to our view on inspection of any accom- 



298 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

plished thought or instance of knowledge. In 
order to such thought or knowledge there must 
be a thinking subject and a thought object. 
The fundamental categories of pure thought, 
that is, those which are given on inspection of 
the thinking element by itself, we have found to 
be Identity, Quantity, and Modality or Necessity, 
§ § 1 61-165. But in order that an object may be 
thought it must be real and must actually im- 
press the mind. §§ 187,188. Hence the two nec- 
essary attributes in anything that can be thought, 
the categories of Reality and Activity. But in 
any actual thought of any object the union of 
the thinking subject and thought object reveals 
two other fundamental attributes. The object 
or thing thought becomes necessarily either Sub- 
stance with properties, or Cause with effects. 
§ 177. We have thus these three fundamental 
classes of categories necessarily appearing in any 
actual thought of an object : — 

First Class : THE CATEGORIES OF PURE 
THOUGHT — Identity, Quantity, Modality. 

Second Class: THE CATEGORIES OF PURE 
TH I NG — Reality, A ctivity. 

Third Class : THE CATEGORIES OF THOUGHT- 
THING, Substance, Cause. 

The so-called three comprehensive ideas — the 
true, the beautiful, the good — constitute as we 
have seen, § 189, a class of categories of an en- 
tirely different order. They might be appropri- 
ately designated the TJiree Psychological Cat ego- 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 299 

ries, as they are given in the nature of the mind 
or soul itself as tri-functional and so involving 
this threefoldness of attribute in every object 
which it can apprehend, that is, in its exact cor- 
relative and complementary. 

II. SENSIBLE REALITY — MATTER. 

§ I94. The Real as external object to the 
mind and as brought to it only through the me- 
dium of the bodily sense, is collectively known as 
matter. By this term is denoted the collective 
whole ; the parts of matter are bodies, including 
under this term all material or sensible magni- 
tudes from the greatest to the least, from suns to 
atoms and even the infinitesimal particles of the 
supposed primitive ether. 

The real in the world of matter, as in the world 
of spirit or mind, is given to us as a concrete 
which our reflective thought resolves into subject 
and attribute, by identifying which it effects its 
product — knowledge or truth. We know here 
as everywhere in the form of subject and attri- 
bute. 

The genesis of the idea of matter generally is 
analogous to the genesis of the ideas of time and 
space, only that it is reached through the medium 
of the bodily sense ; it is primitively appre- 
hended in perception, not in intuition. A part 
of matter — some sensible body — is presented to 
us ; we apprehend it as a part, implying other 



300 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

parts, that is, other bodies, the aggregate of 
which constitutes a whole, which we call the 
world of matter — the material universe. Each 
body that we come to know is real ; for it comes 
to us from without and impresses our sense. 
This is the fundamental attribute of matter — 
reality. Even idealists can, and for the most 
part in fact do, admit this ; they only claim that 
what we call material substance is after all prop- 
erly spiritual in its essence ; it is none the less 
real. 

The particular body or portion of matter that 
we experience comes to us as a part — as limited ; 
but we discern no limit to the number of these 
parts. The whole which is thus brought to us 
through the part is given to us without discerni- 
ble limits ; and there is no indication given in the 
nature or relations of these parts of matter or any 
ground given in reason for supposing that this 
aggregate is limited, that is, becomes a part of 
some larger whole. Imagination is as inadequate 
to picture the boundaries of matter as it is those 
of time and space, or to impute any shape, char- 
acter, reality even, to what can lie outside of 
these boundaries. Beyond them is neither full- 
ness nor void, neither motion nor substance, not 
indeed anything, nor nothing ; for there is no be- 
yond them. The notion is contradictory to the 
deepest convictions of the mind. It is a convic- 
tion, attained indeed in experience, but not less 
trustworthy, that matter is one of the so-called 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 301 

infinities ; or, more correctly, one of those ob- 
jects which the human mind apprehends as 
wholes and accordingly as not limited — not sub- 
ject to bounds. 

Matter makes itself known to us through the 
bodily sense — through some impression it makes 
upon that. Matter thus is a source of energy, of 
force, of power ; it impresses our sense. This, 
then, is an attribute of matter which the fact of 
our knowledge of it presupposes. 

A very troublesome question to philosophers 
has arisen just here : What is the nature of this 
source of energy ? Some eminent thinkers have 
maintained that matter is energy — consisting " of 
mere mathematical centers of force " — nothing in 
fact but force. Others have conceived of matter 
as a real substance, but as nothing more than 
a mere passive receptacle of force. Matter, they 
think, is entered by force ; it retains such force, 
till some fresh force determines it to let it go ; at 
most it is but a mere inert receptacle and medium 
of. force. A third class of thinkers have conceived 
it as a real substance endowed with force as one 
of its essential abiding attributes, not as the pre- 
ceding class conceive, a mere casual visitor. Its 
other properties, besides passivity, are inert- 
ness, retentiveness, mobility, space-filling. 

There is still another doctrine of matter which, 
to say the least, is plausible. It is that matter 
is potentialized force ; that is, force changed from 
an active state to a simple potency. The univer- 



3 o2 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

sal force or energy in nature is here conceived as 
existing in two different modes or states, active 
and inactive. As inactive it becomes a mere po- 
tency — a mere capability of operating. If we 
suppose the universe of force to become diversified 
into specific exertions of energy, a weaker energy 
may readily be conceived to encounter a stronger, 
and so, without losing its identity, to continue 
inactive for the time that it is thus overborne. It 
is now a potency, inoperative, but still subsisting. 
When the overbearing force is removed or new ac- 
cessions of force are gained, the potency may re- 
sume its active state. The theory has the merit of 
being conceivable ; of being in harmony with our 
existing knowledge of things and forces and espe- 
cially of matter, as inert, passive, receptive, reten- 
tive, mobile, space-filling; of being simple beyond 
most or all other theories ; and of removing per- 
plexities and shedding light on obscure problems 
in philosophy. We readily understand in the 
light it gives us why matter should possess just 
the attributes here enumerated. We more easily 
conceive also how mind and matter can interact, 
since they are not positively different natures, 
but only states or conditions of the same. 

The question is relegated to metaphysical 
speculation. But beyond all doubt what we have 
here to observe is that the true is presented to 
our minds in a form of what we call matter, what- 
ever may ultimately be established as the true 
doctrine of its nature. 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 303 

§ 195. Material bodies can make themselves 
known to us only through the medium of the 
bodily sense. The true in them is subject to 
divers modifications in its way to the mind. In 
fact the true as existing in the outward object is 
attained only as the result of a process of inter- 
preting. The sun in the heavens thus, as object 
to the intelligence, as true, is not exactly the sun 
in our thought. In the first place the actual sun 
and the thought-sun differ in the very important 
respect that the one is object, the other is sub- 
jective ; the real sun is not absolutely and exact- 
ly the known sun. How much is involved in 
this simple point of difference, it is difficult to 
say. Even when we have what we rightly es- 
teem to be a right thought of the sun, there is a 
heaven-wide difference between the real sun and 
the thought-sun. A true thought of the sun is 
only a recognition of the attributes — the proper- 
ties and relations — of the sun. But farther, the 
precise character of these attributes suffers modifi- 
cations in reaching the mind. The attribute of 
brightness, for example, is modified by the state of 
the atmosphere through which the light is trans- 
mitted \ a murky atmosphere presents a different 
light from one that is clear. The light, further, 
impresses the sense of sight differently accord- 
ing to the ever varying condition of the organ 
of that sense — the eye — with its connected bodily 
organism ; — a diseased organ, an otherwise occu- 
pied organ, receives a different impression from 



304 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

one in a different condition. Still farther, this 
impression itself is modified as it is transmitted 
to the central seat of sensation to reach the mind. 
And in the mind itself at last the impression is 
interpreted very differently in different mental 
conditions ; in respect, for instance, of intensity 
and of relation to other attributes. The other 
attributes, as of figure and of gravity, are sub- 
ject to like modifications in these several ways of 
their transmission to the mind. Besides all those 
modifications which attend a perfectly healthy 
transmission as we have noticed, a morbid 
condition of body or mind brings in manifold 
illusions and hallucinations in all our experiences 
of external objects. The attainment of the true 
is accordingly the result only of a long continued 
process of more or less unconscious interpretation. 
The particular character of this process in which 
the mind interprets out the impressions made on 
the bodily sense by external objects varies greatly 
in different cases in respect of difficulty, length, 
mode, and certainty of result. But the experi- 
ences being repeated over and over by the same 
mind and by the minds of others, by the multi- 
tudes of human minds, we cannot question the 
truthfulness of the results when there is general 
accord. If no discrepancy worthy of considera- 
tion is discovered in the testimony of the senses 
between one experience and another by the 
same mind, or between the experiences of differ- 
ent minds, and if no ground of rejection of the 



THE TRUE RECEIVED. 305 

testimony is furnished in reason, the result must 
be accepted as a true interpretation. If it be not 
a demonstrative knowledge, it may be a certainty. 
So the race of men have concluded. The testi- 
mony of the senses is accepted as trustworthy. 
Men believe in the reality of external objects ; 
they have a belief of what these objects are. The 
true respecting these objects they believe them- 
selves to possess by legitimate and unimpeach- 
able means. There is besides a natural presump- 
tion in favor of the belief ; the laws of probabil- 
ities favor it. Moreover there is no valid argu- 
ment against it. 



20 



CHAPTER X. 

THE TRUE PRODUCED. 

§ 196. The true first comes into our experience 
and so gives us a knowledge, a cognition, on pres- 
entation of some object. But a mere knowl- 
edge or cognition may, without the aid of any 
additional presentations of object, of itself alone 
become a source of further cognition. Besides 
the proper presentative knowledge which may be 
attained from the simple inspection of a thought 
or cognition revealing its own attributes and giv- 
ing us thus the categories of pure thought, the 
mind may attain still other knowledge through 
the application to what it has already attained 
of the different processes of legitimate thinking. 
Especially after attaining a plurality of cognitions 
respecting different objects or even respecting 
the same object, it may without further presenta- 
tions of object go on to attain an indefinitely large 
amount of other knowledge. There is a proper 
sense thus in which the mind may be said to 
produce knowledge. Acting in accordance with 
the fixed laws of knowledge or thinking, the mind 
may bring into light new cognitions not given by 
any presented object, strictly speaking, yet legit- 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 307 

imately attainable by thought. The true, as 
thus produced, we now proceed to investigate, 
particularly as to the various forms which it may 
assume in our thought and the specific processes 
by which it is attained. 

§ 197. We are prepared by previous considera- 
tions, to accept the principle that the mind has 
no truth until an object is presented to it. There 
are no a priori cognitions in the sense that there 
are such before the mind's activity is called forth 
by some object presented to it. To search for 
any such truth is accordingly preposterous, and 
must be fruitless. Knowledge is the product of 
the mind's activity ; and this activity can be ex- 
erted only on condition that some object — the 
true in some form — has been brought or pre- 
sented to it. Provisionally until light is obtained 
or for some purpose of convenience in acquiring, 
or storing, or communicating knowledge, hypoth- 
eses or theories which are hypotheses corroborated 
in some way or degree, are legitimate. But they 
are not to be esteemed as true cognitions ; cer- 
tainly are not to be accepted as a priori cognitions 
that are not to be challenged. The assumption 
of some general formula which is to be accepted 
because a mere formal truism, as the famous for- 
mula of Fichte, " A=A" out of which to educe 
real knowledge, can never avail to any solid acqui- 
sition or evolution of truth and is pretty certain 
in the use and application of it to draw in some 
fatal paralogism. No more can the putting for- 



30S THE INTELLIGENCE. 

ward of some comprehensive definitions, ad- 
vanced arbitrarily and without assigned ground or 
substantiating reason, as we find in Spinoza's sys- 
tem, satisfy the legitimate demands of sound 
knowledge. Such definitions are sagaciously, per- 
haps unconsciously of ill-intent, contrived to em- 
brace all that can be required in the way of proof in 
the development that follows. The fatal paralo- 
gism as before is sure to come in somewhere ; 
and here as there the paralogistic introduction of 
the real into what was, as assumed, only empty 
form, vitiates the whole procedure. Neither can 
any validating ground of truth, or legitimate 
source of truth ever be found in any mere assump- 
tion. The only legitimate procedure for finding 
either ultimate source or ground of truth is to take 
some instance of a knowledge accepted as such, 
which shall have also the character of a first or 
primitive knowledge and be a fair representative 
of such a knowledge and from it effect both the 
production of truth and its validation. We do 
this when we take either any simple intuition or 
a simple perception — it may be one of the most 
familiar character — respecting which we can make 
no mistake ; as " I feel a pain," or " I see the 
sun." Each of these assertions is in the form 
of a truth — subject identified with attribute — the 
self identified with one form of its essential ac- 
tivity as feeling or seeing. A subject and an 
attribute, that is, two concepts, and also a copula, 
which properly combined form a judgment, are 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 309 

in either case attained. Now from this we may 
proceed to evolve or attain other knowledge. 
We have attained a valid test of knowledge in the 
essential character of the judgment which is 
the primitive and legitimate form of all truth. 
That is so far true everywhere which bears this 
essential character of a truth. We read by in- 
spection of such a judgment, further, as in fact 
we have done, the categories of pure thought, and 
obtain in the study of them and their manifold 
relations, a body of truth of indefinite expan- 
sion in the realms of pure thought, as, for instance, 
with the addition at least of the notions of space 
and time as the necessary conditions of all appli- 
cations of the science in experience, the entire 
science of pure mathematics under the category 
of quantity. Then again we have the concepts — 
subject and attribute — and first as pure thought 
and afterwards as having real content — real feel- 
ing, real seeing. We find them to yield similar 
indefinite realms of abstract and concrete truth 
— truth of pure thought and truth of reality. 

Proceeding in this way we find our path clear 
and our attainments in knowledge sure. We 
have no need of invoking the aid of a priori truths, 
of native cognitions, of first principles, of rational 
intuitions, of axioms, of fundamental defini- 
tions — of assumptions of any name or any form. 
We carry with us one validating test — the ascer- 
tained character of a genuine knowledge. What 
ever stands this test — whatever possesses the 



3 to THE INTELLIGENCE. 

essential character of a knowledge — is true knowl- 
edge. No skepticism can assail it to its harm. 

§ 198. The several processes by which the 
mind may proceed legitimately to attain new 
truth from that which has already been gained 
are at once given us in logical science. They are 
of a twofold order, as determined by the twofold 
form of thought, a judgment and a concept. 

First, the essential element of a truth or judg- 
ment — the logical copula — may, when once legit- 
imately attained, be modified in various ways so 
as to present new forms of knowledge. Such 
changes are logically known as Reasonings. The 
identification may, under certain limitations 
which it is the province of logic to set forth, thus 
be turned so as that it shall directly respect the 
attribute and identify the subject with that ; in 
other words, the terms may be made to change 
places, as in the logical process of Conversion. So 
the breadth of the identification may be legiti- 
mately lessened as in Quantitative Restriction ; 
or the necessary truth be changed to an actual or 
a contingent as in Modal Restriction. From the 
very nature of thought, further, we are author- 
ized to derive new judgments from a disjunctive 
proposition as in logical Disjunction. Within cer- 
tain prescribed limits also, we may transfer the 
quality or modality of a judgment to the terms, 
or from the terms to the judgment, as in logical 
Transference. These are all instances of what are 
called, Immediate Reasonings, in which one judg- 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 311 

ment is changed to another without necessary in- 
troduction of any other thought. 

§ 199. Under the class of Mediate Reasonings 
otherwise styled Syllogisms, in which one judg- 
ment or truth is derived from another, through 
the mediation of some third truth or judgment, 
are comprised two species : — (1) the so-called 
Categorical Syllogisms, embracing those two most 
important instrumentalities of thought in attain- 
ing new truth from that already attained, Deduc- 
tion and Induction, which mediate the derivation 
through the matter or the terms of the judgment ; 
and (2) the Conditional Syllogism, which effects 
the derivation of the new truth through the given 
judgment itself and embraces two species, distin- 
guished in respect to the two kinds of logical 
Quantity, the so-called Hypothetical and Disjunc- 
tive Syllogisms. 

§ 200. It has been already stated that there are 
two, and but two, relationships of quantity of this 
order — that of the part to the whole and that of 
the part to other parts. The process of Deduction 
moves in the first relationship — moves between 
the part and the whole. The principle of this 
movement which legitimates it and validates its 
product is simply this : that whatever is contained 
either numerically, that is, in the j"orm of a sub- 
ject of a proposition, or comprehensively, that is, 
in the attribute or predicate of a proposition, 
must be contained in the whole or any larger 
part. The science of Deductive Logic has been, 



312 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

since the days of Aristotle, who has left us the 
substance of its teachings, developed into a very- 
considerable body of principles and forms, and 
has constituted a prominent department of instruc- 
tion in the higher institutions of learning. Its 
formidable system of formulas has been severely 
assailed by Sir William Hamilton who has ex- 
posed its fallaciousness and its unfitness for prac- 
tical uses. The study of the principles of deduct- 
ive thought, however, accompanied by suitable 
exercises in the application of them is of indis- 
pensable service to thorough intellectual training. 
The principle of induction is found in the nec- 
essary relation of one part to every other part 
of the same whole ; all the parts must contain in 
common those elements or attributes by which 
they are constituted into a whole. The principle 
is as legitimate and clear as that in deduction. 
It embraces, too, numerous diversified applica- 
tions, for which definite laws may be prescribed, 
and valid forms of procedure may be indicated. 
It is, perhaps, the most serviceable instrumentality 
of thought in the advancement of knowledge. 
To it natural science is confessedly indebted 
for its great achievements. Yet the science of 
induction has been but slightly elaborated. In- 
deed, the nature of induction is little understood 
even by those who boast of its achievements. It 
is, in fact, even by them grossly misunderstood. 
Its validating principle or ground has been pre- 
posterously, although very generally, set forth as 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 313 

to be found in the alleged " uniformity of na- 
ture." Induction is thus made to rest on induc- 
tion, since it is only by induction that nature is 
known to be uniform. 

Induction suffers divers modifications like the 
deductive movement ; and accordingly a true 
science of induction must present a large and 
rich development of laws and forms, the knowl- 
edge of which with fitting exercises, must natur- 
ally be supposed to furnish not only an invalu- 
able means of mental discipline but also an 
equally invaluable stock of instrumentality for the 
effective advancement of knowledge. 

§ 201. Secondly, each of the concepts in an at- 
tained judgment or truth, each of the so-called 
terms — the subject and the predicate — may also, 
like the judgment itself, become the fruitful 
source of new thought, with or without the con- 
comitant accession of other truth. The concept 
itself, it will be remembered, comes to be simul- 
taneously with the judgment, just as the mem- 
bers of the living body come to be necessarily 
and only with the body itself. There can be no 
genuine concept, accordingly, until there is a judg- 
ment. In simple truth, a concept, in the legiti- 
mate use of the word, is none other than either the 
subject or the predicate of a judgment; and can- 
not exist before the judgment, any more than a 
member can exist before the living body to which 
it belongs. A single and it may be a simple ob- 
ject may be presented to the mind and be appre- 



31 4 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

hended by it in perception or intuition ; but it 
does not become a concept until the object is 
thought, in other words, is resolved into subject 
and attribute which are then identified in the 
judgment. The truth of a concept must accord- 
ingly be validated through the body of the judg- 
ment and as a constituted member of it. BrigJit- 
?iess, thus, can never be accepted as a true con- 
cept of the Sun, except as it is recognized in the 
full body of the thought — the Sun is bright. As 
before explained the identification set forth by 
the copula respects concepts, not things. The 
true interpretation of the proposition is : my 
concept of the Sim is the same in respect of one 
attribute as my concept of round. 

Proceeding in this recognition of the relation 
of the concept to the judgment, the fundamental 
principle of which is the identity asserted be- 
tween subject and attribute, we may out of any 
validated concept, and especially out of two or 
more validated concepts, educe an indefinite 
amount of new truth, which being produced un- 
der the fixed law of thought must be genuine, 
legitimate truth — necessary truth — necessary, 
that is, if the original judgment be true and the 
principles of thought be observed in the process. 
These principles of thought, particularly under the 
category of quantity, allow of a twofold change in 
each of the terms of a judgment — in the subject- 
concept and in the attribute-concept ; a change 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 315 

by enlargement called Amplification, and a change 
by contraction or reduction called Resolution. 

§ 202. We may thus amplify any attained truth 
in the form of subject-concept by combining two 
or more together in what is known as generaliza- 
tion. The one validating condition to be ob- 
served in this process is that the concepts so com- 
bined be recognized as having each been identi- 
fied in a judgment with some common attribute, 
which in such use is called the base of the new con- 
cept. Single objects are thus, to the great en- 
largement of truth, gathered into varieties ; vari- 
eties into species; species into genera; and one 
concept under a single name is legitimately made 
to embrace an indefinite number of subordinate 
classes and individuals ; as " man " comprises 
races, families, individuals, having in common the 
attribute characteristic of the class, — that is, the 
attribute which is the base of the generalization. 
This movement of thought is of inestimable 
value in the advancement of knowledge. It is a 
movement inconsiderately confounded with in- 
duction, from which all accurate thinkers will 
widely distinguish it. The movement is a simple 
one in its nature and is clearly validated under 
the more specific principle of a common base, as 
stated, and the more comprehensive principle of 
identity in the judgment. 

The amplification of the attribute-concept is 
analogous in process and in validity as well as in 
importance of result. Like induction as com- 



316 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

pared with deduction, this process, as compared 
with the corresponding process in amplifying the 
subject-concept — generalization — as just expound- 
ed, has been overlooked and underestimated. 
The minds of learners have been less trained in it ; 
and the conscious use of it in the advancement of 
knowledge accordingly has been less common. 
But we may enlarge an attribute-concept by com- 
bining into one, two or more attributes having a 
common subject, which will here be the base of 
amplification, as the common attribute was the 
base in the amplification of a subject-concept, and 
in this way greatly enlarge the bounds of our valid 
knowledge. Under the common subject, John, 
thus, to exemplify by a very familiar instance, we 
may combine bodily, white, Caucasian, or bright, 
studious, persevering, and attain comprehensive 
concepts, for which we may devise convenient 
names or words in language. Such concepts are 
comprehensive concepts, and differ widely from 
generic concepts ; the former being combinations 
of attribute-concepts, the latter only of proper 
subject-concepts. 

§ 203. The other process indicated, by which 
new truth is produced from concepts, is Resolu- 
tion or Analysis. As applied to subject-concepts 
this process is called Division and is the opposite 
of Generalization. As applied to attribute-con- 
cepts, the process is called Partition, and is the 
opposite of the process just noticed of attribute- 
amplification. They are both of them most use- 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 317 

ful and effective principles in the advancement of 
truth. They are validated by being recognized 
as proceeding under the more proximate princi- 
ple of logical quantity and the more comprehen- 
sive principle of logical identity. The resolution 
of the concept must proceed in recognition of the 
base, which of course will ever be the opposite 
term in the original judgment that gave rise to 
the concept, and must pass downward from 
whole to part or larger part to contained part, 
either numerically as in the case of a subject-con- 
cept or comprehensively as in the case of an at- 
tribute-concept. 

§ 204. It will be observed on carefully inspect- 
ing these processes and comparing them, that as 
the subject-concept is enlarged, the corresponding 
attribute-concept is reduced ; and conversely as 
it is reduced, the attribute is enlarged. And con- 
versely as the attribute is enlarged, the subject is 
reduced, and as the attribute is reduced, the sub- 
ject is enlarged. For example, if to Socrates, Plato, 
etc., we add Cimon, Pericles, etc., so as to form 
the composite subject or generic concept Athe- 
nian, we at the same time reduce the attributes 
that characterize Socrates, or Plato, such as sage, 
moral, etc., which cannot be thought as belong- 
ing to all Athenians as Cimon. So reducing 
AtJienians to sage Atlienians, we in reducing the 
number of subjects enlarge the characteristics or 
attributes, having added the attribute sage to the 
attribute Athenian. 



3i8 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

This is a method of producing new truth or 
new forms of knowledge that may be most con- 
venient and most serviceable. It is at once seen 
that it is a legitimate method, and its results 
must be accepted as true, provided at least the 
original concept is true and the procedure regular 
under the simple and clear principles of thought. 

§ 205. By these few processes and in these le- 
gitimate modes of thinking we may thus build 
up an indefinitely large and imposing structure 
of knowledge. Such knowledge, likewise, is 
sound, genuine knowledge, for it is the knowing 
faculty's own building. It is, however, but knowl- 
edge — thought — after all. The great question 
suggests itself: is the world around us, is the 
universe, is nature, conformed to this thinking of 
ours, so that in its strictest sense what is true to 
us is true of nature — of the universe? This ques- 
tion calls for a fair and full consideration. 

It is to be allowed at the outset that the forms 
of the true in nature, using this term — nature — to 
denote the entire real object of our thought or 
knowledge, are not the same as those which we 
may or actually do construct in our thought. 
The chemist can effect combinations in his labo- 
ratory of which actual instances cannot be found 
in the world without. The heavenly bodies do 
not move exactly in that perfectly elliptic orbit 
which Sir Isaac Newton's fundamental principles 
of motion prescribe. Bodies do not exist 
around us gathered together in just such groups 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 319 

as our logical classifications effect for some pur- 
poses of convenience to our study ; there is no 
actual general man, or general tree. Notwith- 
standing all this, the combinations of elements in 
the natural world, the movements of the planets, 
and the modes of existence in the material world 
generally, never contradict the principles of 
thought ; and the variations noticed are simply 
such as the varying purposes or occasions might 
have produced while following strictly the same 
principles of thought. We have our peculiar 
aims in attaining certain results in particular 
forms of thought ; and nature has her aims pe- 
culiar to her, and so has her peculiar forms of 
products. It may be well to bear in mind in pur- 
suing the investigation that if there be in nature 
that which is really contradictory to our legitimate 
thinking, it is really unthinkable to us and does 
not concern us in any imaginable way. It is to 
us a very zero — a nothing. The agnosticism or 
the skepticism that denies or questions the real- 
ity in nature of truth to us, denies its own right 
to be or to be regarded with the slightest respect 
by men who think and who believe in thought. 

It is to be considered, moreover, that we start 
in our investigation with a well settled determi- 
nation of what truth is — what true knowledge is. 
We know that we know what we know by the 
incontestable demonstration that this knowledge 
has the accepted and undoubted character and 
essence of a true knowledge.. 



3 2o THE INTELLIGENCE. 

§ 206. We may begin our investigation with a 
search into the nature within, by a search into 
our internal, intuitional experience and thought. 
We feci — we have a feeling. The feeling is a 
fact , at least, we may assume it here as a fact ; 
and we intuit the fact ; that is, we are conscious 
of the feeling. This acceptance of the fact of 
feeling by our conscious selves, is not a knowl- 
edge in the highest and exactest sense, perhaps it 
is not a demonstrative, a necessary knowledge ; 
it is a belief, a trust, a faith ; but it is a certainty. 
It is a certainty of the highest order. If we are 
not conscious when we feel that we feel, we can- 
not be conscious of anything, and agnosticism, 
skepticism, sound knowledge, are alike annihi- 
lated and vanish away together. But this faith 
in our consciousness of feeling is beyond question, 
as it is to us the foundation of all knowledge. 
This consciousness is at once the ground, the 
prompting cause, and the object of our thought, 
when we think that we feel ; the ground of our 
assertion in thought that this attribute of feeling 
belongs to our feeling self. We have then one 
veritable thought — one sound knowledge — one 
genuine truth. We feel ; that is a fact in nature ; 
we know that zee feel, that is a truth of thought. 
Nature and our thought are in perfect accord, as 
object and subject ; Nature in our feeling soul is 
so far exactly conformed to our thinking, so that 
we can put the statement in words, we feel, iden- 
tifying subject and attribute and so having a true 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 321 

thought of a real fact in nature. We go further. 
We become in a like way conscious of a purpose, 
a determination, and think that we thus get a 
new genuine truth, as tested by the essential nat- 
ure of a truth ; we know that we purpose or de- 
termine. We become conscious, moreover, that 
we know that we feel and purpose ; this, too, is a 
truth as tested by the veriest criterion of truth — • 
its essence. We have now three attributes — 
feeling, willing, conscious or knowing — all per- 
taining to one subject — one conscious self — and 
identified with that subject. We combine these 
attributes under the law of attribute-amplification 
and find they fall into a true unity — which in 
fact we designate in a single word — self. The real 
fact in the realm of nature is so far found to be 
exactly conformed to our thinking. One process 
of thought is found to give us the true in nature. 
The true of nature is found to be the true to us. 
There is no contradiction or sign of variance. 

But w T e extend our investigations. Feelings, 
purposes, thoughts, repeat themselves. As hav- 
ing each its own essential property, we combine 
them into three several classes respectively ac- 
cording to these several attributes. Nature no- 
where shows any signs of reluctance. She most 
freely yields to the needs of our thinking. Na- 
ture is thus in these classifications conformed to 
our thoughts; she never contradicts in her indi- 
vidual objects our legitimate classifications. 

§ 207. Pushing our investigation still farther 



21 



3 22 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

into our experience of the outer world, we find 
precisely the same thing substantially with varia- 
tion only in form. We combine with the largest 
freedom everywhere into comprehensive con- 
cepts and into generic concepts or classes ; and 
never a hint does nature give of opposition or 
conflict. Nature is conformed everywhere to 
legitimate thought. We direct our thought on 
whatever point ; it is all the same. Whatever 
exists of truth in nature knowable to us is con- 
formed to the demands of the true from within 
our own thought. We combine or synthesize, we 
separate or analyze, and nature never resists. So 
well assured are we that there can be no variance, 
that if there appear, as there may perhaps some- 
times appear to our first understanding, a seeming 
discrepancy, we ascribe it at once to our own 
weakness and liability to error or mistake. The 
same result is reached if we investigate the corre- 
spondence between nature and our reasoning. 
We have already indicated the logical unsound- 
ness of the common notion that induction rests 
on the uniformity of nature, since it makes induc- 
tion rest on itself, for we can know that nature is 
uniform only by induction. If it should be 
thought that this notion belongs to the class of 
a priori or native cognitions, we have, it would 
seem, sufficiently shown all these to be untenable 
as ultimate grounds of knowledge. That " na- 
ture is uniform " has in fact just the measure of 
scientific value, that the similar assumption " na- 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 323 

ture abhors a vacuum," once was imagined to 
have. It has a certain truth of meaning, and it es- 
pecially serves a use ; it is a cloak to our igno- 
rance, and protects our studies from inconvenient 
molestation. But nature allows as freely our in- 
ductions as our deductions, as our generalizations 
and our comprehensions of attributes. Nature is 
conformed everywhere to true thought. That is 
a grand truth which we find by experience, one 
which we can legitimately find by experience and 
sound thought applied to that experience. Induc- 
tion like all true thought rests on its own determi- 
nable principles. It is to be tested only by its 
own ascertained nature — its essential laws and 
legitimate forms. 

If it be suggested that there are seeming dis- 
cords and variances in nature ; and that there- 
fore legitimate thought may reach conclusions 
that are at war with facts, it is replied that there 
are what are called " sports " and " monstrosities," 
departures from what are conceived to be true 
type-forms. So there are freaks in our thinking 
pursuits ; we sport these at times and attain mon- 
strosities of product. Even in the purest of all 
forms of thought — pure mathematics. By skill- 
ful legerdemain the expert mathematician de- 
monstrates beyond the possibility of any discover- 
able error any given quantity to be equal to any 
other given quantity. But the certainty of. 
mathematical principles and the trustworthiness 
of their results when legitimately applied in cal- 



324 THE INTELLIGENCE. 

culation, do not therefore totter and fall. 
There are satisfactory explanations of the seem- 
in"- falsities in the results. So with a higher 
knowledge and a sharper eye we might satisfy 
ourselves that nature has a satisfactory explana- 
tion for her " sports " and monsters in creation 
and is never thrown off her balance of exact 
truthfulness. 

Still further, induction itself brings to us 
strong corroboration of this grand truth that na- 
ture is ever true to herself and true to thought. 
Our conscious selves are a part o*f nature. The 
fact of our sympathetic interaction with nature, 
attested by our consciousness, involves that. In- 
duction accordingly may move freely and se- 
curely everywhere among the other parts of the 
body of creation and find the true and nothing 
but the true ; for, as parts of the same one whole, 
what is true of us as one part, is true of all the 
other parts, so far as parts of the same whole. 

That there is truth in nature and that the true 
in nature is true to us ; that, in other words, na- 
ture is exactly conformed to thought, so that our 
legitimate thinking in regard to nature must ever 
bring in legitimate and every way trustworthy 
results, appears then beyond all question. It is 
a fair presumption beforehand. The instincts 
of our nature involve it. The experience of 
our thinking ever corroborates it. The very 
principles of inductive thought lead to it. No 
one can advance a particle of valid proof to the 



THE TRUE PRODUCED. 325 

contrary. Nature is true. " Order is heaven's 
first law." The creation is the product of true 
thought ; the universe in every minutest portion 
of its infinite stir moves ever along the straight 
lines of thought. 



BOOK IV. 
THE WILL.— I. SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 



CHAPTER I. 

ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 
208. THE WILL is the mind's function of will- 



ing. 



This function is otherwise known as the Volun- 
tary Power, the Orectic Faculty, the Conative 
Power, the Moral Power, the Power of Choice, 
the Free- Will, the Faculty of Freedom, etc., 

Its product is diversely named ; as a volition, 
a choice, a purpose ; also, a decision, a determi- 
nation, a resolve, a resolution, etc., Of these 
designations, the three first named are the more 
technical. The first, volition, expresses more ex- 
actly the proper essence of an act of the will. 
Choice, from its etymology and its current use, 
points to the appetency, the relish, the liking, the 
selecting, which attends volition, as its prompt- 
ing occasion or the grosser movement of mind in 
which the volition is embodied. Purpose looks 
rather to the result of an act of willing ; it indi- 



NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS, 327 

cates the end implied in all rational volition as a 
telic activity, § 24. The other terms are of in- 
terest as giving the testimony of language, which 
to a certain extent at least, is a trustworthy 
record of the human consciousness, that the will, 
as a determining, deciding, resolving function, 
belongs to an active nature. 

§ 209. The will is diversely characterized. It 
has its own permanent and essential attributes 
and suffers certain noticeable modifications in 
this its own essential character. It is modified 
also in relation to the objects of its action. It is 
still farther modified in relation to the other 
mental functions. 

Our method will be to present the doctrine of 
the will, as we have that of the other functions, 
in the twofold view — Subjective and Objective. 
In our subjective view will be given an exposi- 
tion of the essential characters of volition as the 
proper function of the will ; the growth and in- 
trinsic relationships of the will ; and its extrinsic 
relationships to the other mental functions as in 
Conscience and in the comprehensive virtues of 
Faith, Hope, and Love. The objective view will 
respect the Good as the one object of the will in 
the twofold aspect of the Good Presented — Mo- 
tives — and the Good Produced — Duties. 



CHAPTER II. 

VOLITION. 

§ 210. We may readily identify in familiar ex- 
perience an act of will — a volition — clearly distin- 
guishing it from other mental phenomena. An 
orange presented to our view, produces a certain 
sensation ; — we have a feeling. The sensation 
brings in a cognition ; we perceive the orange 
and proceed to distinguish and think it as having 
this or that attribute ; — we have a knowledge. 
But we often go farther ; we reach out the hand 
and take the orange. We recognize now, besides 
the sensation and the thought or knowledge, a 
certain free determination of our mind ; we 
determine to extend the hand, to take the 
orange. In this determining act we find a proper 
act of willing, a volition. It is proper here to 
repeat the observation that most of the terms 
used to denote mental functions are, without 
much liability to error, employed to denote the 
faculty, the exercise of the faculty, and the re- 
sult of the acting. The term function is a syno- 
nym of faculty ; but points rather to the exercise 
than to the power implied. 

§ 211. Inspecting closely this act of willing or 



VOLITION, 329 

of volition, we discover a characteristic which en- 
ters into its inmost essence ; it is directive. In 
determining to take the orange there is on the 
part of the mind a directing of the nervous en- 
ergy subject to its commands toward the orange. 
This element is discernible in every conceivable 
act of will. There is a directing of some power 
or energy toward some end or object — the order- 
ing of some energy to effect some result. This 
is clearly signified in some of the terms employed 
to designate an act of will — as, determination, pur- 
pose. 

This directive character in an act of volition 
involves selection. As directive, volition is nec- 
essarily selective. In the universe around it and 
within the sphere of the mind itself, a vast diver- 
sity of objects present themselves for the action 
of the mind toward them or upon them immedi- 
ately or remotely ; and as all mental action in 
man must be more or less specific, there must be 
in any act of will a selection from among this 
multitude of objects. And when the object has 
been determined in such selection, there is, still 
further a selection from among the diverse pos- 
sible forms of acting in reference to it on the part 
of the will. In all cases of volition there are 
these objective and subjective alternatives — al- 
ternatives in respect of object and alternatives of 
action by the will toward it. 

It is this selective character in volition which 
makes the term choice a fitting one to designate 



330 THE WILL. 

it, especially as choice often expresses itself or is 
presupposed in the volition. But selection — 
choice — does not necessarily involve willing , for 
these terms express sometimes mere comparative 
judgments or comparative preferences in taste in 
respect to way or degree of pleasing. We may 
select or choose between an orange and a peach 
as to some comparable elements, without deter- 
mining any action in respect to them further 
than a mere judgment or preference, — without 
determining to take the one or the other. There 
may be simple judging without volition. But 
if I proceed to take the orange, I take another 
step not necessarily contained in this act of mere 
judging ; I exert a positive act of will. This 
indeed presupposes selection or choice ; but the 
two are clearly distinguishable as pertaining to 
different mental functions. As well in the sub- 
jective as in the objective alternatives ever at- 
tending volition, there may be selection or choice 
presupposed in the act of willing while yet dis- 
tinguishable from it. I may indeed supposably, 
on a given occasion, forbear all action of will ; 
the simple forbearance of all volition may imply 
what may be called a selection — a selection be- 
tween willing and not willing. Selection here is 
obviously not volition. But in positive volition 
I may either will or nill. This is always a subject- 
ive alternative. But even here, although selection 
— choice — is presupposed in either case, in will- 
ing as well as in nilling, the essence of the volition 



VOLITION. 331 

lies in something distinguishable from the selec- 
tion. I will or nill something. Even nilling im- 
plies something inviting or repelling the action of 
the will, toward which accordingly the instinctive 
activity of the will tends by its native drift or trend 
and the willing act respects properly this instinct 
to act by allowing or resisting it. I may have this 
alternative before me of selecting between willing 
and not deciding at all either to will or not to 
will. So still further, it may be that two or more 
forms of desire or appetency are presented, in 
which case the selective or choosing element in 
still another form comes into the act of willing. 
I am offered the alternative of a peach or an 
orange and I select the one or the other. But 
here, as before, the mere choosing or selecting is 
not all that constitutes the act nor is it the essen- 
tial and characteristic element in it as an act of 
will. Some one of these forces of desire or ap- 
petency, the higher or the lower, this or that, is 
in a proper volition positively determined. The 
desire is allowed at least, perhaps fostered and 
strengthened and given room and sway. It is 
here in this determining by positive allowance and 
enforcement of the desire or appetency or by its 
repression that we find the heart of the volition 
or willing act. It is here consequently in the al- 
lowance or disallowance of the appetency that 
the proper moral character of the act is seated, 
not in the appetency itself. In this directive 
function as the more essential element of an act 



332 THE WILL. 

of will there is often involved besides the selective 
element mentioned, also a proper evoking constit- 
uent — the power to call forth — to excite — as well 
also as to repress the energy working in specific 
acts. It is possibly true that the will cannot in- 
crease or diminish the aggregate of energy at any 
one moment of the mind's history. But we are 
certainly conscious of being able to summon 
forth what energy we have and to infuse more or 
less of it into this or that particular exertion. 
We can be more or less attentive ; we can engage 
our imaginations, our recollections, more or less 
earnestly ; we can determine with more or less 
decisiveness of will. It is an important fact 
concerning the free-will that it can evoke in 
higher or lower degree the energies of our natures. 
The sovereignty of the will reaches to this con- 
trol over the degree as well as the direction of the 
energy to be called forth in any specific case of 
its action. 

Further, this directive action, constituting the 
essence of a proper volition or act of will, neces- 
sarily respects some active nature. We cannot 
conceive of a directive activity exerted on what 
is absolutely inactive. We speak, with allowable 
correctness in the compression of familiar speech, 
of " choosing pleasure," of " choosing honor," and 
the like, when we mean something more than 
mere intellectual selection and intend voluntary 
preference or actual determination of will. But 
we do not, strictly speaking, will the pleasure or 



VOLITION. 333 

the honor ; for the will has no power to call them 
into being. They attend only on the conditions 
which are prescribed in the very creation of man 
and which the will is utterly unable to set aside 
or supplant. The native desire for pleasure or 
for any specific form of pleasure or honor, the 
will may allow or disallow. Desire belongs to an 
active nature, and over it the will has a legitimate 
control. It may repress or, it may be, entirely 
suppress this desire or appetency, and then all 
choice in the case is exterminated in its very roots. 
Or the will may act upon those activities or affec- 
tions of the soul upon the exertion or allowance 
of which the pleasure is made to attend. The 
will accordingly as a sovereign directive power, 
may prevent choice by suppressing desire or may 
give it life and effectiveness by activities or affec- 
tions as required instrumentalities and conditions. 
But its action is ever directed on active natures. 

This action may respect the mind's own ener- 
gies and susceptibilities. The will evokes and di- 
rects thoughts, imaginations, subordinate pur- 
poses. It evokes susceptibilities, directs them 
toward their objects, and holds them under im- 
pression. It acts, too, on the soul itself in its na- 
tive instincts, propensities, appetencies, summon- 
ing them forth, maintaining their ascendency in 
the mind and giving them control ; or on the 
other hand repressing them and crowding them 
out by other feelings or thoughts which it evokes 
and sustains. 



334 THE WILL. 

This directive action, also, may respect the en- 
ergy which resides in the body so far as subject 
to such control. It arouses the nervous energy 
in the body and directs the divers motor forces 
of the nerve-system. It also has a certain in- 
direct control over the affections of the soul 
through the sensory nerves, directing to a certain 
extent what feelings shall be touched by them 
and to what degree they shall be allowed. 

The soul itself and the body with which it is 
united in a living organism are, perhaps, the only 
natures with which the will can interact in imme- 
diate communication. We certainly know too 
little as yet of our relations to other spiritual 
beings to determine with absolute assurance 
whether our wills can immediately touch them. 
But mediately we do beyond doubt act upon 
other beings. We manifest ourselves to our 
fellow men under the direction of our wills so 
as to determine their actions and feelings. We 
stir their pity; we summon forth their benefi- 
cence ; we command their service. Their charac- 
ters and their condition furnish to us true and 
proper ends to our endeavors. We correctly say 
that we purpose this or that in their experience. 
We purpose their success rather than their de- 
feat, working out our purpose in active endeavor 
to secure it ; our love goes out in positive exer- 
tions of will toward them. In our behavior 
toward them we not infrequently recognize a 
truly moral character which implies the action of 



VOLITION. 335 

our free-will. Still more ; we often purpose this 
or that in their immediate experience, as when 
we intentionally provoke them by an insulting 
word or an angry blow ; and this effect in them 
is that which alone comes distinctly into our 
consciousness. The purpose and the will seem 
to fasten immediately on their personality ; in 
the insult or the blow we seem to will directly 
their hurt or pain. The will is an end-seeking 
activity ; and these are seemingly its ends — the 
feeling of hurt or pain in those whom we attack. 
But a strict analysis, here as before, shows that 
the action of the will respects as its immediate 
end, the disposition or the appetency of the soul 
that craves the supposed effect in the condition 
of others, or the ministry of its executive activi- 
ties to effect what is desired. There may be no 
distinct consciousness of any such complicated 
action as this, of first allowing the desire and then 
evoking the executive ministry ; it may seem to 
us as if we immediately willed the pleasure or the 
success of others. But our mental activity often 
evades our notice. When we purpose, for in- 
stance, the raising of the finger, the will cannot 
immediately reach that; it can only allow the 
desire and then direct the energy or the active 
nature that resides in the nerves. The finger 
rises, not in obedience to the command of the 
will, but by the action of this nervous energy 
which we have evoked and set to work. We yet 
seem to will directly the rising of the finger, all 



336 THE WILL. 

unconscious of the intervening instrumentality. 

Once more, volition, as the exertion of a true 
telic activity, ever regards an end ; and as we 
accept the truth that man is the creature of per- 
fect wisdom and love, the legitimate action of the 
human will must ever be for a good end. The 
proper end in all exertions of the will is em- 
braced accordingly under this category — the 
good. Pre-eminently and characteristically the 
will, as the sovereign regulator of the soul, which 
is itself, as rational, an end-seeking nature, is the 
function of ends. Its action is essentially telic — 
end-seeking in a sense higher and larger than the 
action of any other mental function. It is the 
end in respect to the will which thus acquires the 
right to be denominated the good. 

The function of the will, it should be observed 
further, is limited to this directive work, under- 
stood as involving the selective and evoking ele- 
ments named. In loose popular discourse it is 
often made to play a much broader part. Crea- 
tion is thus said to be the product of the Al- 
mighty's will. Great achievements are ascribed 
to mere will-power, when something more is 
meant than a work of mere directive or evoking 
energy. There may be great sagacity and wis- 
dom, large judgment, strong feeling, enthusiastic 
zeal concerned ; but as will, in directing the ten- 
dencies, the feelings, the imaginations, the 
thoughts, is a characteristic feature, the whole 
joint product or effect is ascribed to that. But 



VOLITION. 337 

it should ever be remembered that the sole func- 
tion of the will is to will — to direct and evoke 
the various activities of the soul or of the bodily 
organism. It has no power to feel, to imagine, or 
to think or judge. The mind does all its work 
of willing in directing and evoking through its 
function of will, just as it does all of its work in 
knowing through or by its function of the intelli- 
gence. The grand truth, however, is that the 
mind never acts but as a whole, as one single 
organic nature. It moves ever as a feeling, 
knowing, free activity. One function may pre- 
dominate and give character to a specific act, but 
cannot appear except in organic union with the 
other two. Analytic thought may of course sep- 
arate for convenient study any one functional 
feature from a joint tri-functional manifestation 
of the rational nature. It may deal with mere 
abstraction , the real is ever a concrete. 

The summary doctrine of the will thus is that 
it is essentially a directive function involving a 
selecting and also an evoking element ; that the 
will ever acts on some active nature ; that its 
action is immediately on that nature; and that 
as directive it ever looks to an end, which end is 
known as the good, the term being used in its 
large philosophical import. 

§ 212. If now we take an instance of a peculiar 
kind of volition, as when, for instance, we sup- 
pose the orange, which we have determined to 
take, not to be our own, but another's, who re- 
22 



33S THE WILL. 

fuses us his permission to take it, and if we still 
determine to take it by stealth or by violence, 
we discover in our act another class of elements. 
We discover, first, that such a volition involves 
freedom. 

It is implied in this that the determination to 
take was not forced upon us by any insuperable 
necessity ; that it could be withheld as truly as 
be put forth. We never think of saying, how- 
ever pressed, in self-vindication, that literally we 
could not help taking it ; — that we were neces- 
sitated to take it. We are conscious that in 
every such act we could take or forbear taking. 
Accordingly we acknowledge our responsibility 
for the act. To deny this element of freedom 
is to belie the testimony of our own conscious- 
ness ; it is to contradict the universal testimony 
of intelligent and unbiased men ; it is to falsify 
the universal language of man, which in all its 
dialects comprises terms significant of this free- 
dom. 

§ 213. Another of the higher elements in- 
volved in proper volition is distinct personality. 

This element is indeed dimly given in feeling 
and in knowing. The phenomenon of feeling 
gives the distinction of an object impressing and 
a subject impressed ; as does that of knowing 
give the distinction of object known and subject 
knowing. But this elementary and germinant 
distinction of personality rises into perfect out- 
line and fullness in the free-will and with an em- 



VO LIT/OAT. 339 

phasis not allowable before. The feeling and 
knowing subject in willing recognizes and pro- 
nounces itself a true ego, a person distinct from 
other persons and things. 

But this free personality which has its seat in 
the will and constitutes the leading and charac- 
teristic element of that mental power, itself in- 
volves several distinguishable attributes of high- 
est interest and importance. 

§ 214. First, free personality involves mental 
sovereignty. 

The free-will rules over the whole soul, hold- 
ing the sensibility and the intelligence in strict • 
subjection to itself and under its own control. 

This mental sovereignty residing in the per- 
sonal free-will of man is by no means absolute. 
The very finiteness of his being, which we have 
so fully recognized, forbids this idea. The do- 
main of the will is limited both outwardly and 
inwardly. It meets even within its own proper 
limited domain with checks and obstacles which 
it often finds itself unable to overbear or remove. 
Its universal experience leaves recorded in the 
consciousness the clear, salient characters of the 
dependence and finiteness of the human will. 

This sovereignty of the human will is limited, 
also, in relation to the mind itself of which it is 
the chief function. Its power does not reach so 
far as to reconstruct the mind or change its es- 
sential attributes. It cannot make the sensibility 
feel, the imagination create or put forth form, 



340 THE WILE 

the intelligence know or apprehend or represent, 
otherwise than according to their own nature and 
laws. It cannot utterly destroy, if it may impair, 
the essential activity of the soul. It cannot pre- 
vent its feeling or its knowing. It cannot abro- 
gate utterly its own freedom or its own activity, 
however much it may weaken, corrupt, or ham- 
per its proper function and character. 

But while thus dependent and limited in its 
sovereignty, the personal free-will is a true sove- 
reign. It rules the sensibility while it cannot pre- 
vent feeling when an object is presented to the 
sensibility, and cannot remove the mind from the 
reach of all objects that can impress it, inasmuch 
as it cannot remove itself from the universe of 
being, — cannot altogether prevent feeling, it can 
yet direct feeling in various ways. It can arrest 
any feeling, any appetency or desire, when go- 
ing out toward any one object, and turn it to- 
ward another object. The angry man expels 
his wrath by evoking a feeling of fear or of love ; 
by closing his eye on the provocation to anger 
and opening it on what excites compassion or 
gratitude or reverence. 

The free-will rules also the imagination or the 
faculty of form. It selects the ideal, the matter 
in which it shall be embodied, and prompts and 
directs the embodying act. 

It rules in like manner the intelligence, evok- 
ing it and directing and sustaining or arresting 
its activity. 



VOLITION. 341 

The personal free-will is thus sovereign in a 
true sense over the sensibility and the intelli- 
gence. It is equally sovereign, as will be shown 
farther on, over its own subordinate movements. 
It pervades the entire mental nature by its se- 
lecting and directive power. As the mind feels 
only through its function of feeling, and knows 
only through its function of knowing, and as 
feeling and knowing pervade the entire activity 
of the mind, so the mind wills only through 
the function of willing and willing pervades its 
entire activity. 

§215. Secondly, the free personality involves 
the attribute of originativencss. 

In a sense, perhaps, in which it cannot be said 
of the sensibility and the intelligence, the will is 
a true originator. As part of a finite being, it is 
dependent on something external to itself for the 
object toward which its activity is to be directed 
and with which, if it act at all, it must interact. 
Free choice is in this sense determined by its 
object as presented to it. There can be no 
choice where there is nothing to be chosen, as a 
man, however strong, cannot lift a weight unless 
there be a weight to be lifted. In a sense analo- 
gous to that in which we say the weight deter- 
mines the lifting, we may say, perhaps, that the 
object chosen determines the choice. But there 
is a true sense in which the free-will may be said 
to originate action. As the man determines 
whether he will lift, or not, the weight presented 



342 THE WILL. 

to him, so the free-will ever determines its action 
in this or that direction to be or not to be. 
Freedom supposes ever this subjective alternative. 
If there be but one object presented there is the 
simple alternative of choice and refusal. If two 
or more objects are presented only one of which 
can be taken, the alternative is complicated ; the 
choice or refusal is combined with the act of 
electing- or selecting the one or the other of the 
objects. Of the choice or refusal, whichever it 
be, and whether simple or elective, the free-will is 
justly called the originator and true producer. 

The free-will of man accordingly is so consti- 
tuted by its creator as to be able directly or indi- 
rectly to enter the realm of mere nature as it 
flows on in its necessary flow and to originate 
new sequences different from what would be 
otherwise. It does not originate new matter; 
but it does originate new dispositions of matter. 
It does not originate new measures of force ; but 
it does originate new directions of force, so that 
the sequences of nature are more or less changed 
from their undisturbed order. It does not origi- 
nate, in the sense of exerting, new choices or 
purposes in other free beings ; but it does present 
to them new objects, new motives, new inspira- 
tions which may induce new purposes and char- 
acter in them while still remaining in unchecked 
freedom. 

. § 216. Thirdly, the free personality involves 
the attribute of morality. 



VOLITION. 343 

By morality is expressed the relation of a being 
to right and duty. By virtue of its freedom, 
however, as necessarily intelligent and feeling, 
the mind of man has rights which it exacts 
and duties which it owes. The personal free- 
will is the seat and center of this relation of 
man to right and duty, and is the source out of 
which it naturally and necessarily springs. 

§ 217. Fourthly, the free personality involves 
the attribute of responsibility. 

The fmiteness of man's being and his depend- 
ence already in themselves foreshadow a power 
above him, by which he is limited and hemmed 
in, and on which he depends. But in his free 
activity this relation to a higher power shines out 
clearly and in definite outlines. As the exactor 
of rights and the subject of duties, he recognizes 
a law from without and from above which has 
allowed those exacted rights and has prescribed 
those owed duties. He recognizes a law written 
in his creation on the very center of his being, his 
inmost personality, that at once imposes duties 
and gives rights. He recognizes also a power to 
sustain and to enforce this law, to which he 
expects all other beings from whom he has rights 
to be answerable, to which accordingly he feels 
they must expect him to be answerable, so far 
as he is bound in duty to them. The free per- 
sonality thus makes man moral, as subject to a 
law which enforces duty and sustains rights. 

It is important to remark that this characteris- 



344 THE WILL. 

tic of free personality, involves at once the dis- 
tinction of the personal moral self from other 
personal moral beings. It involves, also, the 
recognition of a personal free being who is the 
source of the law of duty and equally its adminis- 
trator. The responsibility of a free person must 
be not to a thing, not to an attribute, but to a 
free person. This free person we call God, who 
writes the law of duty on the human soul by 
making it what it is and who rules to sustain that 
law. The free personality is thus shown to be 
the seat and center and source of religion, the 
heart and life of the relation of man to God. 



CHAPTER III. 

GROWTH AND SUBORDINATIONS OF WILL. 

§ 218. In the mind as an essentially active 
nature we have found the will to be the ruling 
and directive activity. It rules the other func- 
tions of feeling and knowing, and also, as we 
shall now see, in all subordinate volitions, it rules 
itself. 

It is to be remarked now -of this ruling energy 
of the human mind — the will — that, on the one 
hand it is capable of indefinite increase, and that 
on the other hand, it is limited and dependent. 

In infancy the will is feeble, bordering on im- 
potency. By exercise it becomes mighty through 
the principle of habit and growth. It is devel- 
oped out of the instinctive nature of the mind. 
The transition from action which, is merely 
instinctive and as such necessitated by the 
appointment of the creator in creating it, is be- 
yond the notice of our limited observation. We 
can as well observe the development of the bud 
from its germ. Bat by the very law of all mental 
life its action once prompted continues on, and 
although in a sense changed in its direction or 
opposed by subsequent volitions, yet it never can 



346 THE WILL. 

be truly said to lose its record in the mind's his- 
tory. Each volition not only strengthens the 
willing mind itself, as legitimate exercise strength- 
ens all living power, but each repetition of the 
volition in the same direction or toward the 
same object confirms the tendency to will in that 
direction. The will thus may acquire in time 
what in popular phrase we term indomitable 
determination ; it is proof against all motive that 
finite power can bring to it. Weakness of will, 
in other words, imbecility of purpose, vacillation, 
irresoluteness, is the result of varying volitions, 
one moving in one direction, another in another. 
Strength of will, on the other hand, under the 
great law of growth, comes directly and surely by 
multiplying volitions in the same direction, that 
is, toward the same or similar objects, and by 
shunning volitions looking in opposite directions. 

§ 219. The will, however, as a single function 
in a complex organism, is so far dependent on 
the other functions of the mind — the sensibility 
and the intelligence. 

The objects of volition as motives, without 
which the will cannot act, come to it in part at 
least, if not wholly, through these other functions. 
And further than this, its strength is also depend- 
ent on them. A feeble sense, a feeble under- 
standing, is attended by a feeble volition. In 
the intensest feeling and the clearest knowledge, 
is ever found the most energetic will. 

§ 220. The will, as has been already stated, 



GROWTH AND SUBORDINATIONS OF WILL. 347 

rules itself, in a certain sense, as well as the feel- 
ing and other functions of the mind. 

It does this by putting forth volitions which 
draw along, whether more positively by its own 
free prompting and sustaining, or more negatively 
by allowing and suffering other following voli- 
tions. Such originating volitions are called gov- 
erning, or ruling, or predominant volitions. The 
volitions which they respectively draw along 
after them, are called, in reference to the former, 
subordinate volitions. We determine, thus, to 
take a journey : This determination of will is, in 
reference to the particular acts by which it is car- 
ried into execution, a governing or predominant 
volition. Every particular act of will put forth 
to carry out this original determination, as getting 
ready the baggage, procuring the conveyance, 
etc., is a subordinate volition. Such subordinate 
volitions, in so far as they are regarded as carry- 
ing out the governing volition, are called execu- 
tive volitions. The putting forth the hand to 
take the orange after the determination to appro- 
priate it, is an executive volition. 

It is obvious that the same volition may be in 
one relation a predominant volition, and in 
another relation a subordinate volition. The 
getting ready one's baggage is subordinate and 
executive in relation to the predominant volition 
to take a journey; it is itself predominant in 
relation to each specific volition, as going to the 
shop to purchase, purchasing, ordering or bearing 
home, etc. 



34S THE WILL. 

The highest volition of which man is capable, 
and thus with him absolutely the predominant 
volition, which is subordinate to no other, is that 
which controls the entire activity of the mind so 
far as subject to the will itself. Such a predomi- 
nant volition determines the character of the man 
in its largest and most proper sense. From the 
very nature of motive as object to the will, such 
predominant purpose must have for its object as 
motive the chief good of the soul as actually 
selected by it. The good so taken to be the 
chief good may possibly be an inferior good, as 
compared with some other good that might have 
been taken. Such is the prerogative of the will 
as essentially free ; it can choose the lesser of 
two goods. In the grand alternative of choice in 
which the perfecting of character and condition 
is presented as one of the objects and rejected or 
declined, the lower good is in fact chosen as the 
chief good. And this choice of the inferior good 
is the sin ; as St. Augustine in his confessions B. 
ii., § x., well defines: — " Sin is committed while 
through an immoderate inclination toward those 
goods of the lowest order, the better and higher 
are forsaken." Such sinful choice, although of a 
lower good, consisting in the selecting, the allow- 
ance, and enforcement of a lower appetency, yet 
becomes the predominant volition, and so governs 
and determines the succeeding acts of the moral 
life, and gives character to the entire current of 
the soul's activity. 



CHAPTER IV. 

CONSCIENCE. 

§ 221. The term conscience, originally and ety- 
mologically synonymous with consciousness, de- 
noted self-knowledge generally. But usage has 
greatly modified its signification, first by restrict- 
ing it to matters of will or morality, and, secondly, 
by enlarging it to include feeling as well as 
knowledge. It has, therefore, acquired a new 
import widely differing from its primary sense. 

Other expressions are in use to denote the 
same mental state with more or less modifica- 
tions, as moral sense, moral faculty, sense of duty 
or of rigl it and wrong. 

The peculiar relationship of the conscience to 
the will, as needful condition or necessary con- 
comitant modifying the character of its action, 
justifies or even necessitates the distinct recogni- 
tion of it in a full exposition of the doctrine of 
the will. 

Conscience includes three chief distinguishable 
elements: — (i) a discernment of right and wrong; 
(2) a feeling of obligation ; and (3) an approval or 
disapproval. 

The term is used sometimes with more promi- 



350 THE WILL. 

ncnt reference to one of these elements, some- 
times with more prominent reference to another. 
It properly implies, however, all three, even when 
used with such prominent reference to one, inas- 
much as the three necessarily exist and imply one 
another. 

§ 222. i. Conscience involves, as a chief ele- 
ment, the discernment of right and wrong. 

We have already recognized the truth that the 
idea of free personality involves the idea of being 
a subject of rights and duties, that is, the idea of 
morality. In other words, the fact of free choice 
reveals to us at once the attributes of morality 
as truly as the orange reveals to us the attributes 
of form and of color. It is impossible for us fully 
to contemplate such an act without recognizing 
this attribute of morality, by which is understood 
that the act must be considered as either right or 
wrong. 

This is the proper origin of the category of 
morality which includes under it the specific and 
alternative attributes of right and wrong. It is 
true, however, that the existence of this attribute 
as pertaining to free action in man may be proved 
from other assumed truths. From the assump- 
tion of the being and rule of God there follows 
by necessary deduction the subjection of his free 
creatures to him, which subjection implies the 
enforcement upon them of the observance of the 
right and the avoidance of the wrong. He can- 
not rule without subjects; and as he is free and 



CONSCIENCE. 351 

righteous, he cannot be true to himself but as re- 
quiring righteousness of his free subjects. 

The existence of this attribute as pertaining to 
free action may be deduced equally from the as- 
sumed existence of that true law, right reason 
or rule, invariable, eternal, universal, of which 
Cicero so profoundly and so justly discourses. 
Given such a law, and it follows that action under 
it must be characterized as right or wrong. 

It may be proved also from universal acknowl- 
edgment, from the general consciousness of men, 
and especially as expressed in the language of 
men. 

This attribute of free action — that it is moral, 
that is, either right or wrong — as necessarily per- 
taining to it, may be discerned by the human in- 
telligence in every case, whether the act be one's 
own, and so properly within the range of personal 
consciousness, or another's and apprehended by 
observation. 

The fundamental element in conscience is this 
discernment of the right or wrong in every free 
act which of itself and immediately reveals this 
attribute to every free contemplation. 

§ 223. 2. Conscience further involves the senti- 
ment of obligation. 

A sense of moral freedom involves a sense of 
obligation to do the right and shun the wrong. 
So soon as a free choice is proposed, obligation is 
felt. As every volition involves the necessity of 
an alternative determination, of choosing or re- 



352 THE WILL. 

fusing, and as there is given in this freedom the 
attribute of being obligatory — of constraining to 
the right — so the sensibility is impressible by the 
attribute. It is true, the mind in its sovereign 
freedom, may turn away to a certain degree its 
sensibility from the attribute : yet as the mind is 
in its highest nature a free and consequently a 
moral agent, this sense of obligation cannot be 
utterly prevented or annihilated. 

This sense of obligation, thus necessarily 
springing from the consciousness of freedom, has 
for its objective counterpart what is fitly called 
" the law of God written on the heart." It is ac- 
cordingly a legitimate inference from this con- 
sciousness, from this sense of obligation, that 
there is an outer source of this obligation ; that 
there is a law, given to man from without him- 
self, and inscribed on his inmost nature ; and 
that this source is none other than God himself, 
who created man and endowed him with his free- 
dom and who wrote the law in his inmost being 
and rules ever to sustain and enforce it. 

§ 224. 3. Still further, the full contemplation of 
an act of free-will necessarily brings along with it 
a sense of approval or of disapproval. 

Every such act reveals in itself this attribute of 
fitness to awaken this feeling, as the orange re- 
veals the attribute of juiciness and so impresses 
the outward sense. Relatively to the doer, and 
as seated in him, the attribute is that of merit or 
demerit, desert or guilt. In every free act the 



CONSCIENCE. 353 

doer feels this desert or ill-desert according as he 
has chosen right or wrong ; and exactly corre- 
spondent to this feeling in the heart of the per- 
sonal doer is the judgment of approval or con- 
demnation, of praise or of blame, by whoever 
scans the act with a moral eye. 

Such is the threefold function of conscience ; 
it discerns in every free act the right or the 
wrong; it feels the obligation to do the right and 
to shun the wrong ; it approves or condemns — 
awards praise or blame. 

Conscience, it should be added, has sometimes 
been regarded as the seat of that pleasure or 
pain which attends on all mental activity, and 
which in moral acts and states is deepest and 
most intense. We speak of the pleasure of a 
good conscience, and this pleasure may, perhaps, 
not unwarrantably in less strict language, be re- 
garded as a function of conscience. In this case 
Ave should add as its fourth function that of giv- 
ing the sense of that peculiar pleasure or of pain 
in the doer which naturally attends all right or 
wrong action. 

§ 225. The will extends its sovereignty over 
the conscience as over the entire mental activity. 

It directs and controls the culture of conscience, 
which, like all other mental activities, is capable 
of culture and growth. Quickness and accuracy 
of moral discernment, tender sense of obligation, 
and ready and just response of praise or blame 
are matters of culture. There is open to man a 
23 



354 THE WILL. 

path of advancement, of ascent, leading ever on 
and up towards that infinite perfection which be- 
longs to the judge and ruler of all. 

The will, also, regulates and controls the con- 
science in respect to specific acts. Most moral 
acts of men are more or less complex, embracing 
some lawful elements, some unlawful. Morality 
in this respect is like truth and beauty; it ap- 
pears among men in forms complicated of the 
perfect and the imperfect. As there is some de- 
formity in almost every beautiful form on earth, 
some error in almost every truth held by men, so 
there is in the life even of the upright man some 
taint of imperfection. And on the contrary, 
there is no form wholly destitute of every 
beauty, no error void of all truth, no sin desti- 
tute of some feature or element that is morally 
approvable. The thief may steal to procure food 
for a starving family ; the theft is sinful, the care 
for the dependent ones is right. The will can 
thus fasten the attention more upon this or more 
upon that one of these complex elements that 
enter into every moral act of man, and so the 
recognition of the right or wrong, the corre- 
sponding sense of obligation to choose or refuse, 
and the consequent approval or disapproval may 
vary. Hence the consciences of men, however 
true in themselves, differ in men of different 
moral habits or dispositions in their estimate of 
particular actions. One's own conscience varies 
with his moral mood. The same action is 



CONSCIENCE. 355 

judged and felt by him differently at different 
times. His intelligence varies in quickness and 
keenness, and his sensibility in tenderness. But 
above and beyond this, his will, as sovereign, may 
turn the view or the sense now more on one ele- 
ment, now more on another. Even one's own 
conscience is not uniform in its action. 

Nevertheless conscience remains to man the 
highest arbiter and ruler in all his moral life. 
The authority of the Divine Ruler and Judge 
speaks only through that. If the human con- 
science is not infallible, it is yet the supreme ar- 
biter within the man himself in all morality. 
Man knows no higher in any department of his 
nature. The will itself in all its sovereignty 
must yield to the arbitrament of conscience ; for 
the Creator has not with freedom granted exemp- 
tion from responsibility. As the mind by the 
necessities of its nature, must be conscious of its 
own action, so the will must, to some degree at 
least, pass its own determinations in review be- 
fore the censorship of the conscience. It may to 
some extent hinder, or defer, or even mar the 
action of conscience ; but it cannot wholly silence 
nor so corrupt as to destroy it. 

Hence arises the duty and the importance not 
only of training and cultivating the conscience, 
but also of securing it from being stifled or 
warped by a perverse will. 



CHAPTER V. 

HOPE, FAITH, AND LOVE. 

§ 226. Hope, Faith, and Love are not only 
three comprehensive graces ; they are also com- 
prehensive virtues. 

They sometimes appear with the. sensibility or 
in feeling predominant and so characterizing 
them, and then consequently are proper graces. 
They sometimes, however, appear with the moral 
element — the free-will — predominant in its ac- 
tions and so characterizing them as virtues. 

As graces they come but indirectly, while as vir- 
tues they come directly under this law; but under 
the law of duty in both cases they are properly sub- 
jects of immediate command. The practical rea- 
son, the conscience, recognizes them as right, as 
obligatory, as praiseworthy, and accordingly by 
its voice of authority as the organ of the divine 
will and word, commands them. As graces, they 
appear characteristically as spontaneous ; as vir- 
tues they appear as voluntary and free. As thus 
enjoined duties, in these exercises the will puts 
itself forth and embodies itself in the feeling as 
its needful body and form of expression. It 
selects the feeling to be moved ; it directs the 



HOPE, FAITH, AND LOVE. 357 

awakened feeling upon its object ; keeps the feel- 
ing on its object and animates it to its proper 
degree of life and tenderness, and moreover pro- 
tects it from being smothered or overpowered by 
any adverse feeling. 

§ 227. In HOPE, the free-will leads the feeling 
of desire fed with expectation to its proper ob- 
ject. This object, as legitimate to the human 
soul, must be a good, and in order to hope as an 
enjoined virtue the good hoped for must be the 
highest good which is possible in the case. 

Hope, as a virtue, may be defined to be the 
choice of good as the object of desire and expec- 
tation. 

Hope as an enjoined duty and virtue comprises 
several leading distinguishable elements and 
modifications which we proceed to enumerate. 

1. Hope, as a duty, implies something positive 
to be done. It is not a wholly passive exercise, 
a mere grace. The will is summoned to go out 
and find the proper object of hope and put the 
feeling in exercise. Such object in some form is 
ever attainable. As surely as the activity of the 
soul was ordained and fashioned and conditioned 
in infinite wisdom and goodness for good as its 
end, so surely is it that the duty of hope is a 
practicable one under the rule of God. The 
good in the nature of things connected with 
right action, is in the duty of hope to be sought 
and proposed as object to the sensibility. 

2. In the duty of hope, the desire and expecta- 



35S THE WILL. 

tion are to be set on this good by the sovereign 
direction of the will. 

3. The duty of hope is both generic and spe- 
cific. The whole activity of the soul is to be sub- 
ject to hope in such sense that each governing 
purpose or choice shall be inspired by it ; the 
whole man is to move on in hope. And subordi- 
nate volitions are to stand in like relation to the 
duty of hope, receiving each its special inspiration 
from it. No duty can be rightly and perfectly 
discharged except as thus inspired by hope. 

4. Hope has its limitations both as to the kind 
of its objects and the degree of its allowance. 
The one legitimate object of hope in its generic 
and supreme exercise, is the good for which the 
soul was designed and fashioned. The will is 
enjoined in this duty to seek out and choose this 
good as highest object of desire and expectation. 
The duty prohibits any other good to be thus 
taken as the object of the soul's governing hope. 
Among the objects of specific hope there is wide 
room for selection. Some objects are absolutely 
prohibited ; other objects are prohibited only 
because, in the circumstances, less worthy than 
others which are presented or may be found. 

The highest legitimate good brings no limita- 
tion to hope in degree but such as is imposed by 
the capacity of the soul itself or by the due 
demands of other capacities in its culture and 
regulation. Allowable specific objects of hope 
are limited in their demands to their due measure 



HOPE, FAITH, AND LOVE. 359 

of desire and expectation. These limitations 
vary indefinitely with condition and circumstance. 

5. Finally the free-will is enjoined in the duty 
of hope not only to find its proper object and 
regulate the affection to its proper degree, but 
also to guard and protect it from being over- 
borne, and also to sustain and nourish it that as 
participating in an active living nature it may 
ever grow and strengthen. 

§ 228. In FAITH, the free-will leads the natural 
feeling of dependence to its proper object. 

Faith, as a duty, may accordingly be defined 
to be the allowance and regulation of this feeling 
on the proper object of dependence. It involves 
the actual exercise of the feeling in reliance and 
trust. 

The objects of faith are all those objects on 
which man may in any way depend. Its highest 
form is in relation to God, as the creator and 
disposer of man. The office of faith in this its 
highest form, is to recognize God as the one 
comprehensive, legitimate, absolute ground of 
dependence and trust. In this highest form, 
faith is well characterized as " the subtle chain 
that binds us to the infinite." In lower and sub- 
ordinate forms, faith finds its legitimate specific 
objects in all the beings within its reach which 
fill the universe of God and in all the events of 
his providential rule. Especially does it find 
legitimate objects in fellow-beings of the same 
rational nature. Manifold modes and degrees of 



360 THE WILL. 

dependence determine manifold forms and meas- 
ures of faith. Even the manifold capacities and 
functions of the soul itself call for manifold kinds 
and measures of faith as they are interlocked 
with one another in manifold forms and degrees 
of reciprocal interdependence. We must have 
faith in our senses, our thoughts, our purposes. 
The soul's true life depends on the legitimate 
ministries of these functions. 

Faith, as a duty, like hope, involves divers ele- 
ments and modifications. It implies something 
positive to be done , it involves the fixing of the 
feeling of dependence necessarily belonging to a 
finite nature on its proper object or ground, 
whether this object or ground is the highest and 
most comprehensive as God himself, or subordi- 
nate as his creatures and ordinances ; it has its 
limitations both as to object and degree; and 
requires protection and nourishment. 

§ 229. In love, the free-will leads out the 
natural feeling of sympathy to its proper object. 

Love, as a duty, may accordingly be defined to 
be the choice of the proper object for sympathy. 
It involves the actual exercise of this sympathy 
toward its object. 

The sphere of love as a duty to man, is com- 
mensurate with the range of human sympathy. 
With whatever being the human soul can be in 
sympathy and in whatever way such sympathy 
can be felt and manifested, toward that being 
and in that way the duty of love extends. 



HOPE, FAITH, AND LOVE. 361 

Its highest forms are in relation to those 
objects or beings with which the soul is in closest, 
broadest, deepest relations of sympathy. No 
being is so near to the soul as its creator and dis- 
poser. No being can engage or reciprocate such 
deep sympathies. Love consequently is highest 
and most imperative toward him. It is supreme 
and comprehensive of all exercises of love 
toward inferior beings. 

As there can be nothing more worthy to 
engage our sympathy, nothing in a particular 
being that is more worthy to enlist our highest 
and warmest sympathy, than the comprehensive 
good for which he exists, so love in its highest 
and most commanding form involves sympathy 
with this end for which the object has his being. 
If we reverently characterize the end of God's 
being as the perfectness of his infinite nature, or 
the perfect glory of his character and the infinite 
blessedness which waits on his perfect working, 
then our love to him must necessarily express 
sympathy with this end as its highest possible 
form. Love to God thus in its highest form is 
will to please him or will to glorify him. As the 
end of man's being is his true excellence of char- 
acter and consequent highest blessedness, love to 
man in its highest, most generic form, is will to 
promote this well-being in him. 

The specific and subordinate forms of love 
respect the manifold specific attributes and rela- 



362 THE WILL. 

tions and conditions of other beings so far as 
they can enlist our sympathy. 

Love, as a duty, like hope and faith, involves 
divers elements and modifications. It implies a 
positive act of will, something to be done ; it 
involves the fixing of the natural sympathy of 
the soul on its appropriate object in kind and 
allowing to its natural expression its proper de- 
gree ; it requires protection and nourishment as 
being subject to culture and growth. 



THE WILL.— II. OBJECTIVE VIEW. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE GOOD — ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 

§ 230. The GOOD is proper object of the will — 
it is that which the will as a function of the mind 
immediately and exclusively respects as the legit- 
imate end or result of its action. 

This term, like most others employed in spec- 
ulations respecting the mind, is used in different 
meanings. The ambiguity naturally occasions 
in ethical discussions, in which the term is of 
fundamental import, serious misapprehension 
and error. Two different meanings have been 
very generally recognized, each legitimately be- 
longing to it according to the uses and analogies 
of language :— I, Jiappiness in the largest and most 
comprehensive sense ; 2, the means or conditions 
of happiness. All good, thus, it is held by some 
writers, is either happiness or the means of hap- 
piness. But to others this whole view is unsatis- 
factory. They hold that there is a true good to 
be found in mere being or condition of being 
irrespectively of all happiness. The works of 



364 THE WILL. 

the creation, it is said, were pronounced to be 
good, not because there was universal happiness 
nor yet because simply they stood in the relation 
to happiness which would bring in happiness or 
to that on which happiness depends. These 
works were good in themselves as being perfectly 
fashioned both in respect of their own individual 
natures and also in relation to all surrounding 
and related things, but emphatically good in 
respect to the special end or purpose of their 
respective being. God saw his works were good, 
answering his fair idea. They were all made for 
an end, each individual being and each particular 
function of each being; and that end, whether 
more comprehensive or more particular, was ever 
and always good. It might be true and doubt- 
less it is true, that the designed and the legiti- 
mate result of the working of each and all would 
be happiness, and happiness unmixed. If such 
working be not happiness itself, happiness is but 
the sign and test of it, being its necessary effect. 
But irrespectively of that relation to happiness, 
all these works were good in respect to the end for 
which they were made; and this end was corre- 
spondingly good. It was good as the result of 
the right working of each and all existing things 
and good also in its relation to all other ends in 
the system of universal being and action. As 
the true respects the essence of things and signi- 
fies the congruous relationship internally and 
externally existing in things, and the beautiful 



THE GOOD. 365 

respects their form as they interact in perfect 
sympathy with one another, the good respects 
the end of this being and interaction, and signi- 
fies that it is the fit and legitimate result of their 
nature and action. And so down through the 
history of philosophical speculation from Aris- 
totle onward, the highest good to man, his sum- 
mum bonum, has been held to be the highest and 
most comprehensive end of his being. Inasmuch 
as man exists but as part in a universe of being 
with which he must be in sympathetic interaction, 
his ministry to secure this end or highest good, 
can be neither more nor less than to perfect his 
own being and his relationship to the beings by 
which he is environed. Whatever else may be 
said of man's duty or man's interest, this ever 
remains as the fundamental truth that his good, 
his true good and his highest good, as the legiti- 
mate comprehensive end of his entire activity, is 
to perfect J lis character and his condition. 

This view of the nature of the good, as the 
term is employed in ethical and metaphysical 
speculation, seems to be not only accordant with 
authoritative usage but also to be supported by 
its significance and helpfulness in resolving some 
of the perplexities in this field of knowledge. 
This use of the term seems certainly legitimate ; 
for what can be a truer, a more perfect good to a 
being than that its own being and condition 
should be just what it was designed and fitted to 
be by its creation in infinite goodness and wis- 



366 THE WILL. 

dom ? In the case of an active and growing nat- 
ure what can be its proper highest good but the 
attainment of the highest perfection possible to 
it ? Especially in the case of a rational being 
whose predominant attribute is that it is end- 
seeking, what higher end as good can it propose 
to itself than such perfection of its nature and 
condition ? This is in truth his proper joy, his 
truest happiness, his highest blessedness, his chief 
glory, that he be himself in the greatest perfec- 
tion of his own being and condition. This he can 
by his own free action, in part, at least, effect ; he 
can, to a certain extent, by direct exertion of his 
free-will determine such a good for himself. 
Happiness is beyond his immediate control ; he 
can reach that only through his character and 
condition. He can will conduct on which provi- 
dence suspends all happiness for him ; he cannot 
will happiness. His true good, in so far as he is 
a free being and capable of willing it, is to be 
what he should be. This is the only good which 
the action of his will can reach. 

This kind of good he may be required to seek 
and pursue. He was made for this : if he regard 
his relation to his maker, he cannot but see that 
it is his maker's will that he seek this good di- 
rectly in all his free action. This will is the su- 
preme law of his being. It is the law written on 
the heart — on the inmost tablets of the soul. He 
is called not to happiness, but to perfect living, 
which is to be attested and sanctioned by the pure 



THE GOOD. 367 

joy and blessedness that waits upon it. So we 
answer without hesitancy the question : Whence 
springs the sense of obligation — of obligation to do 
right — in the soul of man ; why should he do right ? 
It springs from the observed nature and condition 
and manifest destiny of his being. He observes 
powers or capacities for certain ends. He should 
be what he was made for and fitted for, and 
should therefore employ those capacities for the 
uses for which they were created. Especially he 
observes in himself as a predominant character- 
istic a free-will fitted to act for a certain end, in 
which action he secures his highest perfection — 
comes to be himself most perfectly. The sense 
of obligation comes at once on this observed 
character of a free being. Man should be his 
most perfect self. His supreme good is to be his 
best self. 

§ 231. The field of the good which is thus the 
end or object in all legitimate voluntary action 
divides itself at once into the two realms of the 
self and the not-self; — of the mind itself and the 
being extrinsic to the mind, with which it may 
interact. 

In the first of these realms, that of the mind 
itself, the most fundamental and the most impor- 
tant of the activities which the will may direct 
and control are the instinctive motions, ongoings, 
trendings, which characterize the very essence of 
every activity in actual exertion. Whether the 
whole soul or only a particular function be en- 



36S THE WILL. 

gaged, some object more or less specific must 
be regarded in the excited activity, and this direc- 
tion of the activity is, as we have seen, under the 
control of the will. To direct it aright, and this 
can be no other than to direct it so as to secure 
its highest perfection in character and condition 
so far as this may depend on the particular act, is 
the proper end — the true good — proposed to the 
will to effect by its control. 

These instinctive ongoings or trendings of the 
activities of the soul appear in manifold forms 
and connections and degrees and are abundantly 
designated in language in a vast diversity of 
terms. Of these terms the following will serve 
as exemplifications : — like and dislike, relish, 
taste ; disposition, inclination, propensity, procliv- 
ity, bias, bent, tendency; appetency, want, desire, 
avidity, craving, longing, appetite. These all 
come, so far as in exercise, under the control of 
the will as exciting, maintaining, strengthening, 
diverting, in all ways regulating them : and its 
province is so to regulate each and all, as to se- 
cure the legitimate end of each and all, their best 
condition and working, which is the true good to 
them. 

But the will also has the power directly to 
summon forth, to incite and to direct, the several 
functional activities of the soul, its thoughts, its 
feelings, its subordinate purposes. Its legitimate 
end here is still comprehended in the great end 
of perfecting character and condition : this is the 



THE GOOD, 369 

true good to be proposed as its end. It will of 
course be included in its field here to repress and 
to divert as well as to incite and lead. 

In the realm of the proper not-self, the end 
proper to the will is that which is suitable to it 
as a member ministering to the body of which it 
is an organic part, and can be no other than the 
perfecting of all this* body so far as it may, and 
particularly in the relations of the whole and 
every part to itself. It is a principle of all or- 
ganic life that the perfect condition and working 
of every part is necessary to the highest perfec- 
tion of each particular member. In this field, 
the end is more characteristically and more 
largely remote as compared with the end in the 
field of the proper self. After the control of the 
appetency or desire at the root of all free action, 
the immediate end of the will here is the working 
and directing of such instrumental agency as may 
involve and draw in that remoter end which the 
will may have allowed the desire or appetency to 
crave. For the most part, certainly, if not in fact 
entirely, this instrumental agency is the force or 
energy which works in the body and is recog- 
nized under the name of nerve-force or nervous 
energy. The human will acts directly on this 
nerve-force ; evokes it, directs it to its purposed 
object. Its action here, as* we; have before inti- 
mated, is a mystery. When we purpose to walk, 
we seem to deliver our command immediately to 
the foot, and order that it lift itself and put itself 



370 THE WILL. 

forward, and have no consciousness of any inter- 
mediate agency or work between our proper selves 
and the member that is ordered to move. But 
science teaches otherwise. At all events the will 
can act immediately only on some active nature 
with which it is interacting, and this is the nerve- 
force residing in the body. Through this instru- 
mentality the will works toward its remoter end, 
putting the instrumental activity to its true and 
perfect use, this being in the existing relation its 
proper good. 

We conclude in the time-honored and time- 
proved words of Aristotle. Under the assump- 
tion that the function of man is activity of soul 
according to reason, he says, " activity of soul ac- 
cording to virtue becomes the good to man, or, 
supposing a diversity of virtues, according to the 
best and most perfect ; and further in a perfect 
life ; for a single swallow does not make a spring 
nor yet a single day. So does neither one day 
nor a brief time make one happy and blessed." 
Or in paraphrase : — the highest good to man is 
virtuous activity of soul in a perfect life of the 
best and highest particular virtues in the most 
favoring conditions. 

§ 232. The good which is the proper object to 
the will is termed a moral good as distinguished 
from all other kinds of so-called good. All these 
may comprehensively be designated as 7iatural 
good. Natural good comes to man from no direct 
determination of will. It is the normal result or 
24 



THE GOOD. 371 

end of all activity whether spontaneous or volun- 
tary. It may be remote consequence of free ac- 
tion. It includes accordingly, as a part, the hap- 
piness that naturally attends upon right conduct 
or the legitimate exercise of faculties. Happi- 
ness as we have seen cannot be the immediate 
object of the will, and therefore strictly speaking 
it is only a natural, not a moral good. In so far 
as an object or end is regarded by the free-will, 
the object or end is thereby characterized as 
moral ; — it is termed a moral good, or, as it may be, 
a moral evil, simply because it is the immediate 
object in the action of the free-will. 

§ 233. Moral good or the good which the free- 
will respects and effects is more direct and imme- 
diate object in character, and more indirect in 
condition. The object of the will and action in 
character is to be found in the specific acts which 
make up character. Its object in condition is 
in the adjustment of one's self or of another to 
those circumstances or those relationships to 
other beings and influences which help to deter- 
mine character ; or conversely, the adaptation of 
those circumstances or relationships themselves 
to the ends of character. 

§ 234. Moral action, accordingly, which must 
ever respect a good either in one's self or in 
another, must be in its true perfection character- 
istically beneficent. All morality, all virtue must 
be found in beneficent action ; in that action, in 
other words, which seeks the good — the perfect 



372 THE WILL. 

character or condition — of one's self or another. 
Moral action involves the three elements of an 
object, an agent, and an act of the agent upon 
the object. It may be characterized as perfect 
or right from regard to either element, provided 
only that there be ever understood a real, if un- 
expressed, an implicit, if not explicit, co-existence 
of the others. If perfect moral action be charac- 
terized in respect to the object, the effect on the 
character or on the condition as affecting charac- 
ter is emphasized and the action is characterized 
as beneficence. If the action be characterized in 
prominent reference to the agent or doer, it is 
the sympathetic action of the free-will in its in- 
teraction with other beings which is emphasized ; 
and the action is then characterized as love. If 
the action, as being in right relation between the 
agent and the object, be emphasized, the action is 
characterized as rectitude. The three principles — ■ 
beneficence, love, and rectitude — are co-ordinate 
and complementary ; they all unite in every per- 
fect moral action ; neither can exist without the 
others, although one may be more prominent in 
reality or in our thought than the others. They 
are in truth three different aspects of the same 
thing. 

Inasmuch as the good admits of degrees, a per- 
fect choice involves the selection of the highest 
degree of good in character or condition which is 
possible. The determination of what is, in the 
particular case of choice, the highest, is left of 



THE GOOD. 373 

necessity to the moral judgment — to the intelli- 
gence acting under the impulse and guidance of 
a pure morality. 

It is the proper province of ethical science to 
unfold the nature and forms of free action adopt- 
ing as its starting point the act itself of the will — 
a moral act rather than the agent or doers of the 
action, and rather than the object which the ac- 
tion immediately respects, just as logic starts from 
thought rather than from the thinking function — 
intelligence — or the object in thinking which is the 
true ; and aesthetics starts from beauty or form 
realized in feeling or imagination, rather than 
from the mental function or from the beautiful 
or perfect in form in its own nature. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE GOOD PRESENTED. — MOTIVE. 

§ 235. By MOTIVE, as object to will, is to be un- 
derstood that which the will immediately re- 
spects in its action. 

The term motive, as applied to moral action 
generally, has been used in two widely distinguish- 
able meanings, to denote both the object of the 
will, as just stated, and as we shall for convenience 
use the term except when specially modified, and 
also the inward spring or impulse or propensity 
inducing or prompting the action. This double 
use of course leads to a certain degree of confu- 
sion and to corresponding error. There seems, 
however, to be legitimate ground for each of 
these uses. The mind as essentially active is by 
the strong set of its whole nature prone to act. 
This natural propensity we have recognized as 
the rudimental principle of the class of feelings 
called desires. This prompting principle is, in a 
legitimate import of the word, a motive, as mov- 
ing the mind to action. But it is a motive-spring 
to thought and to imagination, to the reception of 
truth and the love of beauty, as truly as to pur- 
pose and choice. This motive-spring or impulse, 



THE GOOD PRESENTED.— MOTIVE. 375 

moreover, respects an object ; and the specific ob- 
ject on which it fastens determines the specific 
character of the motive impulse itself. In the case 
of the intelligence, thus, this specific motive-spring 
is the desire for knowledge. We have recognized 
it under the form and name of curiosity. The in- 
ward spring or incentive to knowledge is this de- 
sire — this curiosity. But knowledge determines 
curiosity, as knowing is the object or end of in- 
tellectual desire. We study in order to know ; 
and the attainment of knowledge or truth — know- 
ing — is the motive to study, inasmuch as it deter- 
mines and moves the desire in that particular di- 
rection. Curiosity may thus be spoken of as the 
motive-spring or incentive to knowledge, while at 
the same time and with equal propriety of lan- 
guage, truth and knowledge may be spoken of as 
the motive-object in intellectual endeavor. 

In any concrete act, accordingly, in which the 
will is engaged, we have both motive-spring and 
motive-object. But, it is worthy of remark, the 
immediate object on which the will may act, may 
be this very instinct or appetency which consti- 
tutes the motive-spring; and the end or result of 
the action of the will upon it is allowance, or in- 
citement, or direction. It is this end — the effect 
to be produced in the instinctive activity of the 
mind — which is here the proper motive as object 
to the will. The will itself, as an active nature, 
it may also be remarked, possesses this instinct 
or appetency to act; but of this element it is sel- 



375 THE WILL. 

dom important to take account in ethical discus- 
sions. But the distinction indicated between 
motive-spring as applying to the appetency upon 
which the will immediately acts on the one hand, 
and motive-object as applying to that which the 
will seeks to effect in regulating this instinct on 
the other, although it may seem at a first glance 
rather overnice, is yet of vital importance in 
some of those discussions. To motive-spring as 
a mere spontaneity, no moral character as right 
or wrong can attach ; only to motive-object as in- 
volving the free activity of the will can this attri- 
bute of right or wrong be ascribed. 

§ 236. Inasmuch as in an act there must be, as 
alike necessary, both agent and object, there is a 
certain propriety in the statement that either 
factor determines an act of choice or volition. 
The will cannot allow and enforce an appetency 
or desire unless that appetency or desire be actu- 
ally present, as the appetency or desire itself can- 
not be except as it is awakened by its appropriate 
object. This object itself may thus be truly re- 
garded as determining the action of the will ; — the 
presence of the orange awakening the desire, de- 
termines my will to take it. All this, however, 
must be understood as allowing freedom to the 
will itself — the power of determining its own acts. 
It can will or nill ; it can allow the appetency or 
disallow, or even refrain from either allowing or 
disallowing ; it can take, or refuse to take, the 
orange. The will is the doer of its own acts ; it 



THE GOOD PRESENTED.— MOTIVE. 377 

is a self-wilier, a self-determiner, in the truest and 
highest signification of the expression. It is not 
another that wills in my willing ; not another 
being, nor thing, nor force ; it is myself. Its na- 
tive prerogative of willing or nilling is never sub- 
verted, but by its own allowance. The motive, 
whether as spring or as object, has no such abso- 
lute control ; it is occasion, or it may be effect, 
not proper cause of willing. The motive as 
spring or incentive I am ever free to resist or to 
allow; the motive as object to be effected by my 
will is the result not the cause of my willing. 

§ 237. A motive-object can be such to the will 
only in so far as it is an end within the scope of 
the free activity of the will. Such an end is a 
proper good. The highest good to man, as we 
have seen, is perfect activity according to the 
nature and condition of his being. Every spe- 
cific affection or act, that is truly legitimate in 
itself in the time and condition, is a true good, 
a legitimate motive, because a true end of man's 
being. § 211. 

Good and will are thus seen to be exact correla- 
tives, bearing the relation of object and subject 
to each other. Good and motive-object, more- 
over, it will be seen, are synonyms. 

§ 238. Motives are of two classes — external and 
internal. 

An EXTERNAL MOTIVE is primarily some mod- 
ification of the nerve-force on which the will acts 
by summoning it forth and directing it on some- 



373 THE WILL. 

thing exterior to the mind. More remotely and 
so in a sense more inexactly and derivatively, the 
result of this action of the nerve-force — the move- 
ment of the hand, the grasping of the orange, 
may be regarded as the motive, but only by rea- 
son of its following the movement of the nerve- 
force which the will determined. 

An INTERNAL MOTIVE is the act or affection of 
the mind itself which the will regards ; as, the 
exercise of the imagination, the putting forth of 
a thought, the allowance of a desire as deter- 
mined by the will. In this class — internal motives 
— must be embraced all those ends which we seek 
in our free action in other spiritual beings ; exter- 
nal motives being limited to those which lie in 
the direction of the nerve-force. Of our immedi- 
ate interaction with purely spiritual natures, 
its extent, its modes, its processes, its results, 
science gives us little information that is trust- 
worthy. What the future of experience and dis- 
covery may reveal, it would be unwise to conject- 
ure. It is enough to say here that science and rev- 
elation agree with human experience in testify- 
ing that between the soul and its maker there may 
be, even as there unquestionably is, free and im- 
mediate interaction in which the creature may di- 
rectly seek to move its creator and without inter- 
vention of neural energy. Man may thus find in 
God a true motive to its adoring and loving 
action. 

It will be noticed that motives of different 



THE GOOD PRESENTED.— MOTIVE. 379 

classes may be associated in the same complex 
act. There may be the motive of exciting the 
nerve-force to take the orange associated with 
the motive to gratifying the appetite. Some- 
times one will preside and govern, sometimes 
the other. I may move my arm to take the 
orange without the consciousness of any desire 
for it ; and yet there may follow a sense as of the 
gratification of such a desire. Or I may desire the 
orange, and the will to gratify that may draw on 
the executive volition to take it. The motive 
with a hungry man to take food that belongs to 
another may be to appease his appetite ; the 
actual determination to take it follows as a sub- 
servient motive. With a kleptomaniac the mo- 
tive may be to indulge a perverse passion for 
appropriating as the primary and governing mo- 
tive ; he may use the food he has thus thievishly 
appropriated to satiate his hunger. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE GOOD PRODUCED. — DUTIES. 

§ 239. The highest good in character and con- 
dition attainable in the case being recognized as 
the object in a perfect choice, the actual adop- 
tion of this object by the free-will in positive ex- 
ertion to secure it is its truest and best action. 
This is true virtue. But we have recognized a 
sentiment of obligation as springing up sponta- 
neously in the mind when the free-will is brought 
into this face-to-face relation to its object ; and 
virtue becomes duty — action that is obligatory — 
because of the organic relationship of the will 
to its co-ordinate functions and to the mind it- 
self, and of the analogous relation of the individ- 
ual self to others as like parts of one moral whole 
— a moral universe. Moral obligation — duty — ■ 
is founded in this organic relationship. And to 
duty there is the correlative — of rigJit. That 
which is due from me to my neighbor is his right. 
Duties and rights are correlatives, reciprocally 
implying each other. If the question be raised, 
how do I come to see or feel this obligation — 
whence comes the sense of duty — the answer 
must be that the organic relationship indicated 



THE GOOD PRODUCED.— DUTIES. 381 

immediately reveals it ; I discern my duty of 
ministry at once in this, that I am organic part of 
a living whole. 

The fundamental fact here to be considered 
is just this— that the will is a part of a living 
whole, a true member of an organism, the life of 
which is sustained and nourished by the com- 
mon ministry of each part. Each particular 
member has its own office, which office the wel- 
fare of the whole and, as involved in this, the 
particular welfare of itself and of each other part 
demands, and which office it belongs to the par- 
ticular member to discharge. The will thus 
properly and truly owes, by reason of its own 
nature and its relation to the whole soul, this 
faithful discharge of its office, or fulfillment of its 
ministry. It exists for this; its end and function 
are fulfilled in this. I normally feel this obliga- 
tion — have a sense of duty — as I perceive this re- 
lationship of function and end. To this it is to 
be added in the case of the will, that being free, 
endowed with the high prerogative of selecting 
and directing its ministrations, allowing ministry 
or refusing it as to any particular service, the 
idea of duty takes on a peculiar character — that 
of being moral and carrying responsibility with 
it. By virtue of its membership of a living 
whole, the function of the free-will is charged by 
its very nature with the obligation to fulfill its 
office toward the other members and the whole 
soul. Its entire office in this relation to the 



J 



82 THE WILL. 



whole man and to the several co-ordinate mem- 
bers consists in summoning forth these several co- 
ordinate functions of the soul or of the whole soul 
itself as the particular occasion shall require, of 
directing them, sustaining them, and giving them 
free scope and sway, and all so as to effect this 
highest and fullest perfection in accordance with 
the end of their being, whether of the whole 
man or of the several members of the organism. 

But the soul itself is a part of a larger whole. 
It exists in vital relationships to other beings 
around it. It is a veritable member of an organic 
whole, in the life of which its own life is en- 
wrapped. The obligations of a ministering mem- 
ber exist here as in the former case. They are 
of the same general character and are compre- 
hended in the general duty of effecting the high- 
est perfection of every part and of the whole. 
Thus are indicated the objects of duty to the 
human soul — to self, to fellow men, and to God. 
These are the objects at least which most closely 
concern it. They are accordingly those which 
it is of importance to enumerate here. 

The particular ways in which the will dis- 
charges the duties of its ministry have been al- 
ready intimated. It will be sufficient simply to 
restate them. First and chiefly, perhaps, the 
will fulfills its duty by allowing or disallowing 
some particular propensity, or appetency, or 
drift, which we have recognized as native to the 
soul of man, and giving it sway. In this min- 



THE GOOD PRODUCED.— DUTIES. 3S3 

istry the will forms what we call character. If 
it accept the highest and most comprehensive 
appetency of the soul's nature, and give it con- 
trol over all other appetencies, the highest and 
best character is formed ; for, as we have seen, 
activity, once determined in a particular direc- 
tion flows on till positively arrested. If a lower 
appetency be allowed to rule in place of a higher, 
the character is lowered accordingly. In the next 
place, the will determines specific imaginations, 
thoughts, subordinate purposes. Such move- 
ments of the soul affect, if they do not fully 
determine, character. They strengthen char- 
acter, or impair it. In the third place, besides 
these immediate determinations of the will, 
through the rational nature of the soul, remoter 
ends may be proposed and accepted by the will 
when, if the purpose be a living one, subordinate 
immediate determinations are made by the will, 
both in the personal life and also in the life of 
the outer being around with which the soul is in 
organic interaction. 

§ 240. A fundamental condition of duty, of 
virtue, of right action of will, is sympathy in the 
large sense of susceptibility of being affected by 
others and capacity of affecting them. Such 
sympathetic relationship between the different 
departments of the mind or self we must also 
suppose to be conditional to all proper personal 
duties. It becomes at once the fundamental 
duty to secure and maintain this relation of ac- 



384 THE WILL. 

tive sympathy between the subject or agent in 
duty and his object. Ranking with this, as a 
second fundamental duty, is that of securing and 
maintaining a practical acquaintance with the 
objects of duty. And still a third of the same 
rank of fundamental duty is that of maintaining 
a disposition of will to meet the calls of duty, 
as addressed by the several objects of duty. 
Such a sympathetic, intelligent, and ready dispo- 
sition it is the proper function of the will as sove- 
reign to foster and cherish. Only so can that 
habit of action which constitutes virtuous char- 
acter be secured. Viewed in this light the duty 
might more properly be considered as falling 
into the division of personal duties as a part of 
personal culture. Yet as obviously fundamental 
and conditional to duty in the comprehensive 
sense it may, without impropriety in method, 
be presented here for distinct consideration. 

§ 241. The distribution of specific duties fol- 
lows most conveniently for practical uses the 
principle of division furnished in the objects of 
duty. Only in them is to be found the proper 
motive to the will — the good, in character and 
condition, of sentient rational being. We have 
thus as the most generic classification of specific 
duties the threefold division, of (1) Duties to self ; 
(2) Duties to fellow men ; and (3) Duties to God. 

Duties to self or Personal Duties comprise 
(1) duties in respect to the body, of guarding, 
nourishing, and ruling it ; (2) in respect to exter- 



THE GOOD PRODUCED.— DUTIES. 385 

rial condition, including such as relate to nature 
or the external world, to property, to station, and 
to friendship ; and (3) in respect to character. 

Duties to fellow men embrace the three classes 
of (1) duties to individuals; (2) duties in the fam- 
ily ; and (3) duties in the State. 

Duties to other individuals, or the proper so- 
cial duties comprise the three classes of duties 
determined by the threefold constituents of duty 
— love, good, right, viz. : (1) sympathy, kindness, 
loving endeavor; (2) courtesy, truthfulness, jus- 
tice, and benevolence ; (3) sincere intent in action 
that is governing, unswerving, and accordant with 
condition. 

Duties in the Family or proper Domestic Du- 
ties comprise (1) those of marriage, or conjugal du- 
ties; (2) parental and filial duties, and (3) frater- 
nal duties. 

Duties in the State or proper Civil Duties are 
those of loyalty, obedience, and support. 

Duties to God or proper Religious Duties are 
those of personal piety, and of social religion. 

It is the proper province of Ethical Science to 
unfold the doctrine of duty in its nature, grounds, 
and specific forms. 



25 



BOOK V. 

THE REASON.— MIND AS ORGANIC 
WHOLE. 



CHAPTER I. 

ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 

§ 242. In our survey of the general attributes 
of mind we recognized its most essential charac- 
ter as activity. This activity it is impossible for 
the human mind to apprehend except as it is 
manifested in specific exertions — specific acts. 
The exhaustive consideration of this active na- 
ture cannot go beyond the study of these spe- 
cific acts of whatever form and kind, gathering 
them together into classes by means of some 
common characteristic belonging to them, and 
then fixing them in their true relationships to 
one another and to the whole of which they are 
the organic parts. All these special acts, we have 
found, may be comprehended in the threefold 
functional activity of feeling, thought, will, — as it 
goes out toward the respective objects of these 
several functions, the beautiful or perfect in 
form, the true, and the good. This threefold di- 



ITS A~A TURE AND MODIFICA TIONS. 387 

versity of function we recognized as pertaining 
to a simple organic whole ; the threefoldness con- 
sisting with a complete organic unity which is a 
fundamental character of mind, never to be lost 
from view in the study of its nature. Another gen- 
eral attribute was recognized as that of finiteness 
and dependence. The human mind is finite — 
limited in its range of object and in its intensity 
of action. It is also dependent for its action upon 
objects that present themselves to it more or less 
beyond its control as well as upon the channels 
or means through which these objects gain access 
to it. This characteristic indicates and involves 
the great truth of its being a part of a larger 
whole — a part of a universe in fact, so that its 
whole life, the entire development and outgoing 
of its active nature, is determined, shaped, and 
sustained through this relationship to an environ- 
ing universe of being and to the other co-ordi- 
nate parts which with it constitute and make up 
the whole. In this circumstance of being and 
life it is susceptible of indefinite growth and 
maintains a character of unbroken continuance. 
Three prominent features at once associate them- 
selves with these general facts of observation in 
regard to the human mind. First, as a distinct 
unit among those which constitute the universe 
of similar life, it interacts with them, receiving 
and imparting, impressing and being impressed. 
In this interacting relationship, in the next place, 
it is self-conscious as well as cognizant of the ob- 



3S8 THE REASON. 

jects that impress it. In the third place, it is self- 
determining, as it maintains by a power within 
itself its independent life and determines within 
the limits of a finite nature, its acts, its affections, 
its forming character. 

With this general survey of the attributes of 
the human mind, the continued study led to a 
more minute and thorough investigation of the 
three specific modes in one or other of which its 
essential activity manifests itself. This investi- 
gation we have prosecuted in the last three Books. 
It will occur to the thoughtful student that our 
study of the human mind does not reach its ex- 
treme limit with this separate study of the sev- 
eral functional activities of the mind, even al- 
though they constitute the entirety of its nature 
as essential activity. There is a view of its life 
and history as one organic whole which is not 
contained within this study of particular functions. 
There is a life of the organism embracing all this 
specific action, but not embraced within it. As 
single, the mind is in every function — it is " all in 
the whole and all in every part." This is a great 
fact never to be forgotten. . But there is a view 
of the whole which is more than a view of the sum 
of the constituent parts ; for the mind is more than 
a mere aggregation of functions. It has a life 
which contains this aggregation, and what is 
vastly more, which converts it into one living or- 
ganic whole. Each several function is other and 
different from what it would be if subsisting by 



ITS NA TURE AND MODIFICA TIONS. 389 

itself, were this possible. Each member partakes 
of a larger life by which it is shaped and charac- 
terized, and which in its turn it helps to shape 
and characterize. A mere functional treatment 
of the human mind misses the wholeness there 
should be observed both in the mind itself and 
also in its object. Such a functional psychology 
gives but the anatomy of mind and leaves out the 
vitality of action, which is its truest characteris- 
tic. 

Philosophical discussion and the language of 
cultivated men generally have fully recognized 
this fact, that the science of the several functions 
of an organism does not fill out the full knowl- 
edge of the organism itself. There are relations 
sustained by the organism as a whole, both inter- 
nal toward its own members and constituent 
parts and also to other organisms around it, 
which are peculiar to it and do not immediately 
respect the individual members. The body has 
a life other and different from that which can be 
portrayed in the science, however perfect, of its 
separate organs ; and the activity — the condition 
and working — of the several organs is affected by 
the condition of the whole bodily organism. 
Divers errors of very serious moment have arisen 
in mental science, it is believed, from the limita- 
tion of its sphere to the presentation of the sev- 
eral functions. Something more, for illustration, 
is meant by the phrase " rational nature " than 
would be signified in any expression of the com- 



390 THE REASON. 

bined functional activities of sense, thought, free- 
will. No hesitancy is felt in characterizing an 
act of the mind in imagination, intelligence, or 
purpose as rational. This implies that any spe- 
cific act might be genuine and in itself altogether 
legitimate and complete, and yet fail of being 
entirely or perfectly rational. To exclude in the 
full study of mental activity, this organic whole 
of mind as a rational nature cannot fail to occa- 
sion error. 

The term " reason " is synonymous with the 
phrase " rational nature." As a single term it is 
more convenient in use. For the use of it as 
denoting the mind as an organic whole, abundant 
vindication could be adduced from our best liter- 
ature. It will suffice simply to cite the following 
from Sir William Hamilton. As his sixth special 
faculty under the general cognitive faculty, he 
gives what he calls the Regulative Faculty. This 
faculty corresponds, he says, to what was known 
in the Greek philosophy under the name of vovq. 
It is analogous to the term Reason as used by the 
older English philosophers and to the vernnnft 
{reason) in the philosophy of Kant, Jacobi, and 
others of the recent German metaphysicians. It 
is also nearly convertible with the Common Sense 
of Reid and Stewart. 

The designation — Regulative Faculty — happily 
points out a leading characteristic of what is 
generally understood by the phrase rational 
nature or reason. But the reason is more than a 
mere cognitive faculty. When we speak of a 



ITS NATURE AND MODIFICATIONS. 391 

"rational thought" we mean something more 
than a well-regulated thought as a form of knowl- 
edge ; something more than a thought well 
grounded and well formed and well adjusted in 
its parts and external relations, as the laws of 
pure knowledge prescribe. A rational thought is 
a thought which is worthy of a rational soul, 
which is not only logically sound and congruous, 
but is pervaded with feeling, and has an aim ; — a 
rational thought is a sympathetic and also a wise 
thought. The phrase opens out to our view a 
field vastly richer than the merely cognitive ele- 
ment exhibits. Rationality is more than intelli- 
gence ; reason, more than intellect. It is also 
more than feeling, more than choice. It is more 
even, as we shall see, than mere aggregation of 
the three — thought, feeling, choice. 

§ 243. Without further vindication of this mode 
of designating mind as an organism and leaving 
the propriety, not to say the necessity, of this 
distinct treatment of it to be seen in the exposi- 
tion of its nature, we will in the next two chap- 
ters, present the twofold view we may take of it, 
first subjectively and then objectively. We fol- 
low in this the method of our treatment of the 
several specific functions of the mind. It is 
obvious that this faculty may be modified both 
in reference to the specific determinations of its 
outgoing activity from within itself, and also in 
reference to the specific characteristics of the 
general object which may address it from with- 
out. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE REASON — I. SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 

§ 244. THE HUMAN REASON — the Rational 
Nature of Man — the Human Mind viewed as a 
living organism the essential nature of which is 
activity expressing itself in the threefold func- 
tional modes of Sensibility, Intelligence, and Will 
— is obviously to be viewed as no co-ordinate 
faculty in the rank of the special functions just 
named, any more than the human body is to be 
co-ordinated with any special function such as 
that of nutrition, muscular contraction, nerve- 
sense. It is rather to be regarded in the larger 
view suggested by the term of a power than in 
the more restricted view of a faculty. It is not 
a special faculty. On the other hand it acts only 
through some special faculty and never in its 
action contravenes the laws of such special fac- 
ulty. Just as the body breathes only through 
the lungs and precisely after the law of the lungs, 
so the reason, the mind, as a living organism, feels 
only through the sensibility and according to the 
laws and forms of the sensibility, imagines only 
through the imagination ; thinks only through 
the intellect ; and chooses only through the will. 



SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 393 

It, however, through this diverse functional activ- 
ity performs work that is beyond the reach of 
any of these separate functions. This work, it is 
to be noticed also, is not a merely combined 
product of two or more of these functions, as we 
have recognized,, for example, in the sentiments 
in which feeling is expressed combined with in- 
telligence or will, or as in the virtues, hope, faith, 
love, in which all the functions find characteristic 
expression. This peculiarly organic work, which 
is properly to be recognized as the work of the 
reason in distinction from that of either of the 
three functional activities, is at once distributed 
into three distinguishable fields. The first of 
these is its work as directed upon itself. 

I. THE ACTIVITY OF THE REASON AS DIRECTED 
UPON ITSELF. 

§ 245. The human reason, the mind of man as 
a living organism, we have found to be sympa- 
thetic, conscious, free. It exhibits these several 
attributes in its reflex action — in its action upon 
itself. It is, in a true and most important sense, 
in sympathy with itself. It has by its very na- 
ture an interest in its own well-being. It is sen- 
sitive to the very depths of its being to whatever 
vitally affects - this, its inner well-being. No 
deeper principle can be found in its nature. 
Absolute recklessness, absolute unconcern here is 
a human monstrosity, if not a contradiction. 



394 THE REASON. 

The suicide who murders the bodily life in an 
inconsiderate wreck of all higher interests, has 
his only motive-spring or inducement to his 
deed of desperation in this self-regard ; for why 
should he seek to terminate a life that does not 
concern him ? It is the very unbearable pressure 
of this self-regard that drives him to this climax 
of madness. It is a woful mistake, but it is that 
of a man, a rational nature, however misled, not 
that of a stick or a stone. If a man is crushed, 
he knows that he is crushed ; and more, he knows 
and feels that it is himself that is crushed ; alas ! 
still more, he knows that he freely crushes him- 
self. The human reason is in vital sympathy 
with itself. It acts back upon itself ; it feels its 
own presentations ; its own imaginings. It holds 
up its ideals of life, of being, of character, of 
destiny, before its own capability of feeling ; it 
receives these ideals to itself; it feels them. 

It acts back thus upon itself also in full con- 
sciousness. Even when not holding up such 
inner work before its cognitive power in distinct 
form so as to be reflected upon and remembered, 
it yet works consciously, intelligently, observing 
the principles of truth, the essential nature of 
things in its work and conscious, too, possibly if 
not actually more or less, of the proper effect of 
its work, of its fitness to its end. Moreover, this 
inner work is done aimingly, in reference to some 
end, more or less felt and seen. Just as the total 
life-force in the bodily organism exerts itself on 



SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 395 

each organ, determining in harmonious co opera- 
tion, motor power and muscular power and every 
organic power, upon the inner life in some par- 
ticular need, so the reason acts back as a whole, 
in the conspiring exertion of all its functions 
upon its own interior nature. It is in the high- 
est sense a regulative power over its entire inner 
self. With a true, sympathetic, conscious, pur- 
posing interest in itself, it rules within the limits 
of its nature its whole activity in reference to its 
demands. 

The human mind possesses, as we have seen, 
the attribute of continuousness. Action, which 
is its essential nature, involves continuousness. 
The human reason discerning this character of 
continuousness, as it must in any proper intro- 
spection, and discerning that it is to itself at least 
an unending continuousness with a conscious 
sense of this fact, together with the consciousness 
of its being capable of an indefinite growth and 
expansion, an ever growing enlargement both of 
experience and of capacity, — the reason is of ne- 
cessity impelled by an irrepressible ambition to 
act under the law of this unlimited continuous- 
ness of its activity in this growth and drift of its 
nature, in such a way as best to secure its truest 
well-being and its highest perfection. The hu- 
man reason beyond all question is capable of this 
high, most worthy ambition. It may well be 
doubted whether a mature reason ever failed at 
some time to be conscious of its inspiration. It 



396 THE REASON. 

may be smothered, it may be disregarded, it may 
be resisted ; the human reason is free and is able 
to sell its birth-right for the paltriest indulgence. 
But this high ambition is a true belonging to the 
human reason. It is its proper work, its most 
commanding and pressing work, indeed, to obey 
the promptings of this high ambition and form 
for itself a true character in the perfecting of its 
powers and capabilities. The destiny of the man, 
thus, as mainly depending on his character, is en- 
trusted to the care and ordering of the reason, as 
its indefeasible organic trust and care. 

Such is the peculiar office-work of the feason 
in respect to its inner self — feelingly, consciously, 
aimingly to shape out and nourish up into its 
highest degree of well-being its own true nature 
and thus, so far at least as depends upon itself, to 
determine its final destiny. Involved in this 
work is the regulation of all specific and subor- 
dinate actions so that they shall helpfully and 
harmoniously carry forward this high develop- 
ment into perfect character. It is beyond the 
province of any special function to effect this co- 
operation, each in its turn and in its degree, in 
perfect adjustment to the final end. It is the 
reason that must summon forth the particular 
function, select its object, and direct the activity 
upon it, regulate it, in the largest sense, as to di- 
rection, intensity, and continuance. It is the 
office of the reason to keep the several functional 
activities in equipoise and symmetrical working. 



SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 397 

Sense and imagination, intellect and will, can 
move only as called forth by this higher author- 
ity ; they can each work only in its own respective 
lines according to its own laws. Only as super- 
vised, harmonized, controlled by the reason can 
they effect any worthy comprehensive result. 

Such is the high function of the rational nature 
— the reason — to regulate the entire outgoing of 
the mind's activity so as to effect the highest per- 
fection of its own nature. The candid study of 
its nature discovers this momentous truth con- 
cerning itself. The " categorical imperative " of 
duty, the " moral sense " in man, comes from this 
study by a true rational intuition, — by an intro- 
spection into itself by the reason. The inde- 
structible impulse in the inmost life of mind to- 
ward a comprehensive end which is to be found 
only in a perfect character, the irrepressible drift 
of the essential activity of mind toward this end, 
the consciousness of the power to regulate to- 
ward the consummation of it, constitute the im- 
perative calf to the duty, reveal the obligation, 
and press to the performance. Here is the seat 
and origin of conscience. Hence is the authori- 
tativeness of its high behest that the mind make 
itself to be the best it can. 

The free-will has a part here ; if it be not the 
better view to regard moral freedom as pertain- 
ing rather to the rational nature — to the reason — 
than to the specific function. In any view, the 
freedom in man remains in all this urgency of 



39S THE REASON. 

reason and of conscience. The high end of 
rational perfection may be taken or refused ; and 
the refusal involving the choice of a lower aim, 
does a fatal work — a work that is obviously irrep- 
arable by itself. No subsequent action of its own 
can undo what is done. It yet remains true that 
in the very nature of the human reason and its 
necessary outworking is revealed the fact that 
the true comprehensive end of all its activity is 
the perfecting of its own well-being and condi- 
tion. 

II. THE ACTIVITY OF THE REASON AS DIRECTED 
UPON THE SEVERAL FUNCTIONAL ACTIVITIES. 

§ 246. The reason finds a second field for its 
work in the special regulation of the specific 
functions of mental activity — the sensibility and 
imagination, the intelligence, the will. As al- 
ready intimated, it selects their objects, summons 
forth and controls their activity as to decree and 
measure. This is a work altogether outside the 
province of the special function. 

More particularly; in the field of the sensibility 
and imagination, the reason selects the objects by 
which the sense is to be impressed or which it is 
to impress and controls these impressions as to 
their force and range. More than this, acting in 
this sphere the reason becomes a designing and 
constructing power, a faculty of means and ends, 
and of methods in the particular working of the 



SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 399 

function of form, and, moreover, modifies, shapes, 
adapts the forming work, in reference to ulterior 
objects and ulterior ends. In all proper art and 
also in the construction of proper science, the 
rational imagination does its fashioning work sym- 
pathetically with all related things, in conscious 
congruousness as to all parts and relations, and in 
governing aim toward its own chosen ends, and 
adaptations to outer objects. 

In the field of the intellect, the reason also 
comes in to regulate so as to effect cognitions, 
forms of thought and of knowledge, altogether be- 
yond the sphere of mere intellect. Rational in- 
telligence is true wisdom ; and wisdom and mere 
science of knowledge are far from being one. 
Prodigies of science and learning are sometimes 
most irrational ; the more prodigious, the more 
irrational. Rational intelligence acts in sympathy 
with all objects of knowledge and all the powers 
and capabilities of the soul, whereas pure knowl- 
edge is in itself hard and unyielding to exterior 
things. Rational intelligence, farther, co-ordinates 
each special knowledge with all other cognitions 
and also subordinates according to due rank and 
worthiness, fashioning all knowledge into shapely 
completeness and symmetry, in due dependence 
and relation, into a veritable body of truth with 
its own proper unity. It pours in upon each act 
of knowledge a light from the principle of knowl- 
edge, assuring it to be a work of true knowledge, 
comprehending all specific cognitions in their 



400 THE REASON. 

grounds, and directing all, both to their respective 
places in the body of truth and also to the spe- 
cific ends of the knowledge or even to the com- 
prehensive end of all knowledge. 

In the field of the will, in an analogous way, 
the reason controls all specific exertions of choice 
as to object ; correlates them to other exertions 
both of the will and of the other mental func- 
tions ; brings all into due symmetrical relation- 
ship to the whole mental condition and destiny. 
The rational choice is put forth in sympathy with 
all related things and in conscious reference to all 
its bearings both such as are internal and also 
such as are external to itself. 

III. THE ACTIVITY OF THE REASON AS DI- 
RECTED UPON EXTERNAL OBJECTS. 

§ 247. The human reason has a third field of 
activity in the world of being properly extra- 
neous to it. Here are comprehended the relation- 
ships of the mind to the body which it inhabits, 
to external nature, and to other minds. 

The interaction between mind and body has 
already been considered so far as manifesting it- 
self between the special functions of form, on the 
passive side, known as the sensibility and on the 
active side, known as the imagination, and their 
respective objects. We need here only to super- 
add the consideration of the activity of the 
proper rational nature in this interaction, beyond 



SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 401 

and outside of the action of the special function, 
as also beyond its regulation of the special func- 
tion as already noticed. In the first place, as an 
organic whole in vital connection with the body 
as also an organic whole, its general life and ac- 
tion are in sympathetic interaction w T ith the life 
and action of the bodily organism. Mind and 
body affect each other with the sympathetic sen- 
sitiveness and quick response of members of the 
same organic whole. The health and vigor of 
the one affect the health and vigor of the other. 
Bodily vivacity and energy awaken and sustain 
mental action ; the weariness of the one induces 
lassitude and weakness in the other. Lively feel- 
ing, vigorous thought, determined purpose, quick- 
en and strengthen the heart-throbs. " Conceit 
can cure and conceit can kill," is a familiar 
maxim in the experience of the physician. If 
the warm blood of youth animates the feelings 
and thoughts and purposes of earlier life, the es- 
tablished vigor of mental life protects and up- 
holds the bodily life in later years. Sudden 
death not infrequently is the consequence of a 
sudden termination of active intellectual pursuits. 
Body and soul as parts of one organic whole, 
thus act and react upon each other ; and they 
thus act and react because one life affects another 
in organic relation to it by natural sympathy. 
Such is the ordinance of nature. Every life is 
interlinked with its neighbor life. " Man's life," 
26 



402 THE REASON. 

says Emerson, ''is intertwined with the whole 
chain of organic and inorganic being." 

In the next place, the mind as a whole, the 
whole rational nature acting as a single organism, 
interacts with the body in interchange of impres- 
sion, each imparting and each receiving. In 
sympathy ; in conscious apprehension too of 
what it seeks to effect, of the character of its 
own action, and of the effect it is to produce, as 
well as of the means to secure the effect ; in aim- 
ing purpose, likewise, as one activity although 
tri-functional, the reason acts upon the body ; and 
in corresponding sympathy, consciousness, and 
free allowance or resistance, receives to itself the 
action of the body. 

This sympathetic, vital interaction between 
soul and body suggests, if it does not prove be- 
yond reasonable question, that a like nature pre- 
vails in both ; that in other words, the action 
that comes from the body on the soul is that of a 
being like the soul itself. The interaction is be- 
tween two like energies, similarly constituted. 
We are safe from all reasonable question when 
we assume that the energy which works in the 
body on the mind is itself spiritual like the mind. 
It follows from this assumption that the activity 
of the human reason on the body is in fact di- 
rected immediately on another mental nature 
like its own ; and consequently that this action 
on the body is exactly pictured in its action upon 



SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 403 

itself and upon its special functions, as we have 
just recognized it. 

But this living energy of the body thus in sym- 
pathetic interaction with the reason can be no 
other than that which pervades the natural 
world around us generally. We discover the 
same interaction between the mind and the exter- 
nal physical universe as that which we have dis- 
covered between mind and body. The only dif- 
ference is that here the interaction is more me- 
diate, whereas in the other case, it was more im- 
mediate. Yet the interaction between mind and 
body is to a large degree properly mediate. If I 
press the end of my finger on yielding wax, the 
impress on the wax is mediately effected through 
the bodily organ ; but my purpose to make the 
impress acts in a true sense mediately as it 
travels along the efferent or motor nerve out 
through the arm and hand to the tip of the fin- 
ger. And so in regard to the entire interaction 
between the mind and the external world, we 
find substantially the same character of action, 
only modified by the greater or less degree of 
immediateness in the interaction and by the re- 
spective qualities and condition of the particular 
objects. The reason acts in relation to these ob- 
jects as joint member with them of one organic 
whole, affecting them in the first place by 
mere presence of life, and in the next place by 
the positive exertion of its own communicative, 
thoughtful, purposeful energy upon them ; and is 



404 THE REASON. 

passively affected by them in their sympathetic, 
truthful, and aiming work. 

The result we find to be the same in its gen- 
eral characteristics if we push forward our inves- 
tigation to the interaction between one mind and 
another. There is the mediateness of interaction 
that we have already recognized ; only it is of a 
remote degree — a mediateness through the en- 
ergy that pervades all being, and by which all in- 
teraction between different organisms is effected. 
I think of a man : I communicate my thought 
through certain nerves producing at length a 
sound which we call his name ; the air vibrations 
of the sound traverse a space and reach another 
organism in which afferent nerves convey move- 
ments that at last effect an image in another 
mind ; and joy, grief, fear, anger, stormy emo- 
tions, it may be, follow. I purposed them in utter- 
ing the name ; and the energy there is in nature 
took up the purpose and conveyed it to its desti- 
nation. The mind which my purpose finally 
reached and moved is discovered to me to be of 
a common nature with mine. All the properties 
and laws of interaction between my reason and 
itself or its special functions, govern here in this 
interaction between my reason and other natures 
around me. My rational activity is in harmony 
with that of other beings ; it interacts with them ; 
it impresses them and is impressed by them ; it 
determines the rational tri-functional activity of 



SUBJECTIVE VIEW. 405 

others through a sympathetic, conscious, aiming 
action of its own. 

Simple, unquestionable, comprehensive, thus, is 
the law of the human reason as tri-functional 
activity ; — it is regulative through sympathetic, 
intelligent, purposive exertion. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE REASON. — II. OBJECTIVE VIEW. 

§ 248. The proper function of the reason being 
predominantly and characteristically regulative, 
the object or end of its work must be precisely 
to perfect character and condition. This is its 
comprehensive work and the comprehensive effect 
of its work. The work is twofold, as it respects 
(1) character or the essential properties of its ob- 
ject, and (2) condition or its relation to other be- 
ings. But such a regulative work in the case of 
the human mind can be exerted, directly at least, 
only on active beings — energies, or forces, or 
powers. Man cannot affect any portion of mat- 
ter even, except by directing some force upon it, 
as through some motor nerve-force. This regu- 
lative work, accordingly, of reason in any object 
in regard to character is simply this — to effect 
that such object be at its best. Every object, how- 
ever, with which the human mind is to act, is a 
part of an organic whole, and cannot be at its 
best estate unless its environment, its condition, 
its relation to other objects, be the most favor- 
able. Such then is the twofold work of reason 
upon its objects to make them, so far as it can, 



OBJECTIVE VIEW. 407 

perfect in character and also perfect in condition. 
The objective view of the human reason as a 
regulative power or function covers precisely this 
field — the perfecting of the character and condi- 
tion of the beings upon which it works. It will 
be sufficient, so far as the demands of our pres- 
ent undertaking are concerned, simply to outline 
in a summary way the effected object of this 
regulative work of the reason in this twofold 
direction — egoistic and altruistic — in the respect- 
ive departments of its office work. 

§ 249. As directed upon itself, in its proper 
egoistic work, the regulative office of the reason 
is to perfect the essential activity of the spirit — 
to effect that it be ever at its best, as to fullness, 
roundness, and symmetry, and as to direction by 
being expended on the highest and best objects. 
To this one high end its growth and culture are 
to be regulated, while all specific outgoings of 
its active nature, which must always be in har- 
mony with the demands of the best culture, are 
to be kept at their best. It is, in other words, 
the sacred trust and office of the reason, so far 
as may depend on it, to render the soul a fully 
developed activity with its specific functional 
powers in perfect harmony and symmetry — a 
feeling, intelligent, aiming spirit, ever moving in 
due sympathy, enlightenment, and free determi- 
nation, a spirit of love and light and beneficence. 
But the character of an activity must of course 
depend on the character of the object on which 



4o8 THE REASON. 

it is exerted. It is high or low, broad or narrow, 
noble or base, according to this object. The 
activity of the human soul, we have seen, has a 
strong and steady drift and set in the direction 
in which it is made to move. This drift or set 
works itself out in the form of desire ; and the 
comprehensive desire as allowed by the rational 
free-will determines the character of the soul and 
is determined or characterized by the object on 
which it fastens. As desire, it is spontaneous 
and therefore is not in itself moral or immoral, 
until the rational free-will comes in, in its sym- 
pathetic, conscious, aiming work, to allow or dis- 
allow it. The object of the desire, whether bod- 
ily indulgence, intellectual strength, or nobility 
and excellence of character, cannot, as we have 
seen, be the immediate object of this action of 
the rational free-will, for that must be some ac- 
tivity which it is to control and regulate. It is 
the activity in the desire which comes under this 
controlling power, and by allowing or disallow- 
ing that, by fostering or repressing that, deter- 
mines the fundamental and comprehensive form 
of character. The first, chiefest, most funda- 
mental, and most vital work of the rational na- 
ture in forming character is found accordingly 
just here, in regulating this all-pervading sweep 
of the soul's active nature appearing in the form 
of desire, by directing it upon its proper object 
and then steadfastly sustaining it and developing 
it into its fullest and largest sway. The supreme 



OBJECTIVE VIEW. 409 

good, the summum bonum, to man, his chief end 
and the object of his highest endeavor, is the per- 
fection of his own being in itself and in its con- 
dition. As he constitutes a part of an organic 
whole, the life of which is his life, the perfecting 
of his condition is but the perfecting of his fel- 
low members in this organic whole. This is the 
altruistic part of the work allotted by its nature 
to the reason as regulative. 

Summarily, then, the comprehensive object 
of true rational activity is the perfecting of the 
natures of all individual beings in their organic 
relationships to one another, beginning its radi- 
cal and germinant work in regulating the funda- 
mental drift or desire of the soul itself aright, 
following it up in regulating all specific desires 
and propensities and determinations, and ending 
with a like work on all surrounding natures with 
which it is in interaction. 

The product or resultant of this rational work 
would be the realized ideal of a perfect character 
in each of the organic parts of the universal cos- 
mos, both as a whole with its parts in congruous 
relationship to it and to one another, and also as 
a part in like congruous relationship to all other 
parts of the cosmos. This realized ideal, as per- 
fect, would of course bear the several character- 
istics which we have recognized, the true in es- 
sence, the beautiful in form, the good in end. 
These characteristics will, in a nature finite and 
imperfect as is the present lot of man, naturally be 



410 THE REASON. 

realized with a diversity of aim and of endeavor. 
The essence of a perfect character will be more 
regarded by one part of the race, as by the 
Roman the just or right was esteemed the true 
mark of the perfect soul or the perfect act. The 
form of character will be the leading ideal of 
another part, as the noble — the kalon — by the 
Greek. The end in action will be the governing 
ideal in another, as wisdom was the- comprehen- 
sive character of the perfect soul in the estima- 
tion of the Hebrew. The absolute perfection 
in character will be the three joined in true or- 
ganic union — the true or essentially right, the 
noble or beautiful in form, and the practically 
wise in relation to the good as end. This is the 
comprehensive result of all proper egoistic work 
as regulated by the reason. 

The altruistic work is perfectly analogous. It 
will modify itself only in reference to the pecul- 
iar character and relationships of the being on 
which this part of its work will be directed. 

Certainly the grand center and source and all- 
pervading energy in this cosmical organism — the 
very creator and disposer of it — must be the chief 
object in this rational activity. The specific 
character of its work is determined at once by 
the peculiar character of the object; and the per- 
fecting work of the reason here can be only the 
endeavor to secure that character and condition 
in all created natures which shall perfectly show 
forth the perfect character of the great creator 



OBJECTIVE VIEW. 411 

and disposer in the comprehensive features of 
love and wisdom and beneficence conjoined in the 
supreme reason. 

Should the question arise : of these two depart- 
ments of rational endeavor — the egoistic and the 
altruistic — which should be esteemed the higher 
and the more commanding; the answer is, that 
the two endeavors can in a perfect life never 
come in conflict, any more than one organ of the 
body in a perfect condition conflict with another. 
In the next place, the perfected character and 
condition of all related parts of the cosmos is 
indispensable to a like perfection in character 
and condition to each individual part. It is still 
true that in all finite natures, the objective is 
before and so leading to all subjective action. 
The human soul waits on external object to 
awaken it to the first going forth of its activity ; 
and ever, as we have seen, it recognizes its 
dependence on the external object for lead and 
guidance. In this view, it would seem that 
whenever there arises a doubt which should be 
the dominant principle in action, the presumption 
should favor the altruistic. It is the sad condi- 
tion of humanity that the proper egoistic work 
has disastrously prevailed, a true egoism has 
become a downright selfishness ; and a proper 
counterbalancing remedy for this, would seem- 
ingly be found in determined altruistic work. 
Job's misery ceased when he prayed for his 
friends. 



4 i2 THE REASON. 

The grand result and outcome of this rational 
work in a rightly proportioned egoistic and altru- 
istic endeavor will be, in the mind itself, a whole- 
souled and harmonious movement of all its func- 
tions in loving, wise, and purposive action toward 
the noblest and worthiest objects, bringing in, as 
the consequence appointed and assured by the 
supreme wisdom, love, and power, the perfect 
blessedness of a perfect character and condition. 

This grand result and outcome in respect to all 
fellow-creatures must be a like loving, wise, and 
purposive activity going out in all opened ways 
toward them, modified from a proper self-love 
only in the respects due to co-ordinates and 
fellow-members of the same body. 

Finally, in respect to the great Supreme, this 
result and outcome will be a like loving, wise, and 
purposive activity, going out here toward him in 
due reverence, submission, and trust. To perfect 
character and condition in the creature and sub- 
ject is the one way to manifest the perfections of 
the creative and sovereign ruler conceived in his 
creative and ruling work. To " glorify God " 
accordingly is in one aspect the " end of man." 
In another aspect, the highest blessedness of 
which a man is capable, is a true and right end 
of his action, but mediately and in so far only as a 
consequence that is appointed in the constitution 
of the universe to wait on all legitimate action. 
While to perfect for himself this character and 
condition is the one immediate legitimate end of 



OBJECTIVE VIEW. 413 

all free activity in man. Most truly says Seneca : 
" Man is a rational being ; therefore his good is 
consummated by fulfilling the end for which he 
was made. Rationale enim animal est homo; con- 
summatur itaque ejus bonum si id adimplevit cui 
jiascitur." 



INDEX. 



Activity, essential attribute of 
mind, 8. 

Affections, T02 ; classified, 103 ; 

Appetites, 108. 

A priori ideas, 282. 

Association of ideas, 167 ; laws, 
172. 

Attention, 255. 

Attributes, essential or intrinsic, 
and relative or extrinsic, 6; 
261. 

Attributive Knowledge, 210; its 
object, — the true, 211; its ele- 
ments, 210. 

Catalepsy, 139. 

Categories, 238 ; of identity, 241 ; 
quantity, 244; substance and 
cause, 263 ; synopsis of funda- 
mental categories, 297. 

Concept, 234. 

Conscience, 349. 

Consciousness, a knowing func- 
tion, 34 ; gives intuitive 
knowledge, 38; restricted to 
the mind's own modifications, 
39 ; variously modified, 42. 

Continuousness of mind, 17-26. 

Contradiction, law of, 232. 

Copula, 228. 

Curiosity, 254. 

Deduction, 311. 

Desires, 105, classes, — desires 

proper and aversions, 107 ; 

self-love, 107 ; appetites, 108 ; 



rational desires — personal and 

social, 109. 
Determination, logical, 235. 
Disjunction, law of, 231. 
Division, logical, 316. 
Dreaming, 134. 

Emotions, 94 ; classified, 95 ; as 
intellectual", 96 ; aesthetic, 97 ; 
moral, 99. 

Exclusion, law of, 231. 

Faith, 274 ; as a virtue, 356, 

359- 
Fears, ill. 

Feelings, classified, 63 ; pleasure 
and pain, 67. 

Form, 59 ; of a twofold charac- 
ter — active and passive, 60 ; its 
nature and modifications, 188; 
its three constituents, 193 ; 
received, or interpretation of 
form, 196 ; produced, 202 ; 
principles, 205. 

Generalization, 235. 

Good, the, its nature and modifi- 
cations, 365 ; its two realms, 
367 ; moral and natural, 370 ; 
presented — motive, 374 ; pro- 
duced — duty, 380; duties clas- 
sified, 385. 

Growth of mind, 22. 

Habit, 22. 

Hope, in ; as a virtue, 356. 



416 



INDEX. 



Idea, as denoting any act or 
affection of the mind, 51 ; the 
three comprehensive ideas of 
the true, the beautiful, and 
the good, 51 ; 269. 

Ideals, 121 ; primitive and sec- 
ondary, 121. 

Identity, personal, 19 ; law of, 
231 ; category of, 241. 

Imagination, active function of 
form, 63, 11S; artistic, philo- 
sophical, and practical, 185. 

Induction, 311. 

Ijitellectnal apprehension , 251 ; 
representation, 253. 

Intelligence defined, 209; modi- 
fications, 209. 

Intuition, 222 ; sphere, 223 ; an 
act of presentative knowledge, 
223; gives immediate knowl- 
edge, 224. 

Intuitive knowledge, 212. 

Judgment, 234. 
Love, as a virtue, 360. 

Matter, 299. 

Memory, proof of continuousness 
of mind, 21 ; defined, 149; its 
law, 153 ; conditions of a good 
memory, 161 ; rules, 165. 

Mental Reproduction, 166. 

Mental Science, its subordina- 
tions, 1 ; importance, 2 ; co- 
ordinate with physical science 
and mathematical science, 3 ; 
an inductive science, 3 ; 
sources, 5; method, 7; 

Mind, .essentially active, 8 ; a 
unit, 12 ; not identical with 
its object, 13; simple, 14; 
tri-functional, 14; continuous 
in its activity, 17 ; of an 
organic nature, 27 ; finite and 
dependent, 27-30 ; sympa- 
thetic, 30 ; self-conscious, 34 ; 
its spontaneity and self-deter- 
minateness, 44; its activity 
telic, 46 ; its relativity, 49 ; its 



phenomena classified subjec- 
tively as intelligence, sensibil- 
ity, and will ; objectively as 
the true, the beautiful, and the 
good, 51 ; as organic whole, 
3S6. 

Modality, category of, 246; its 
forms, 247. 

Motives, 374 ; classes, ^77- 

Nervous organism as seat of 
sensation, 77 ; described, 79 ; 
functional activity, 80; reflex 
action, 82; subject to a law 
of habit, 84 ; as related to the 
mind, 86. 

Partition, logical, 316. 

Passions, 116. 

Perception, 214; relation to sen- 
sation, 216; sphere, 217; gives 
immediate knowledge, 218. 

Phantoms, 127. 

Pleasure and pain, 67 ; their 
immediate source, 71 ; final- 
ities, 72 ; simple, 72 ; tests of 
legitimate mental action, "J2> > 
diversely modified, 74. 

Properties, 262 ; two classes, ac- 
tions and qualities, 262. 

Quantity, category of, 244. 

Reality or existence, attribute of, 
279. 

Reason, the, 386 ; in respect to 
the self, 393 ; to the several 
functional activities, 398 ; to 
external objects, 400 ; its work 
— egoistic and altruistic, 406. 

Reasoning, 236 ; classified, 237. 

Recollection, 179; rules, 180. 

Relativity of mind, 49. 

Self-consciousness of mind, 34. 

Selfdeterminateness of mind, 44. 

Self-love, 107. 

Sensations, 77 ; their seat in the 
nervous organism, 79 ; classi- 
fied, 89. 




INDEX. 



4*7 



Sense ideals, 123. 

Sensibility as mental function of 

form, 58 ; how modified, 63. 
Sentiments, 112; contemplative, 

practical, rational, 113. 
Somnambulism^ 140. 
Space, genesis of the idea, 294. 
Spiritual ideals, 145. 
Spontaneity of mind, 44. 
Supersensible reality, 289; time, 

290. 
Syllogisms, 311. 

Thought, 225 ; constituents, 228 ; 

laws, 231. 
Time, genesis of the idea, 290. 



True, the, 257; received, 274; 

produced, 306. 
Truth, internal or supersensible, 

276. 

Volition, 328 ; directive and se- 
lective, 329 ; respects some 
active nature, 332 ; telic, 336; 
its elements, freedom, ^S ; 
personality, involving mental 
sovereignty, originativeness, 
morality, and responsibility, 
338. 

Will, nature and modifications, 
326; growth and subordina- 
tions, 345. 



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